PRICE, 36 CENTS. 




u 






M 



A 



-AND — 



HIS INVENTIONS 



INCLUDING THE MANY 



INCIDENTS, ANECDOTES, AND INTERESTING PARTICULARS 

Connected with the Life of the Oreat Inventor. 




— ALSO — ^ 

Full Explanation of the Telephone, Phonograph, Tasimeter, and all 
HIS Principal Discoveries, with Copious Illustrations. 

EoLited. "by T. B. J^cCLTTZSE. 



CHICAGO: 
RHODES & McCLURE. 



iST"©. 



A. M. WOOD <t CO., PRINTERS, 167 S. CLARK ST„ CHICAQO. 




iorncu 



dcdon 



EDISON 




H 




INCLUDING THE MANY 



Incidents, Anecdotes, and Interesting Particulars 

Connected with the Life of the 

Great Inventor. 



—also- 



Full Explanations of the Telephone, Phonograph, Tasi- 

meter, Electric Light, and all his Principal 

Discoveries, with Copious 

Illustrations. 



" T. A. E. never had any boy-hood days ; his early amusements were steam engines 
and mechanical /forces.''* 

^SAMUEL EDISON^ (.concerning his s«n.) 



A 



V EDITED BY 

J/Bf McCLURE. 



CHICAGO : 
RHODES & McCLURE, PUBLISHERS. 



1879. 






C-fx 



rr 



51 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year iSj^, by 

J. B. McCLURE &* R. S, RHODES. 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress ai 

Washington, D, C. 







7, / 7 44 



CHICAGO : 
A. M. Wood, Printer, 167 S. Clark Strbbt, 



Chicago Legal News Co., Stereotypers. 



/ 




We live in an age in which "science is marching onward with 
gigantic strides. " Inventions multiply with increasing rapidity, 
and discoveries flash as lightnings over the land. We cannot, if 
we would, shut our eyes to the wonderful results. Intimately 
associated with this progress, and foremost in the ranks, is 
Thomas Alva Edison, the king of inventors, and "one of the 
most remarkable men of the age. " Connected with the life of 
such a person there is always an array of incident and anecdote 
in which a generous public manifest a keen and curious interest, 
that enlightens and entertains. It is the aim of the compiler in 
this volume, to present the many anecdotes, and remarkable 
experiences, that make up the wonderful history of Mr. Edison ; 
and also to present, in connection with these, such explanations 
of his principal inventions as may be of general interest. When 
available, Mr. Edison's own language has been chosen to tell the 
stoiy, or explain the discovery. The compiler acknowledges 
his indebtedness to the Messrs. Edison, Batchelor, and Griffin, of 
Menlo Park; Samuel Edison, of Port Huron; Geo. B. Prescotfs 
works; Scribner; Daily Press; W. U. T. Co.; A. T. Co.; London 
journals, etc. 

J. B. McCLURE. 

Chicago, May 21, 1879. 



A Great Man — Over $450,000.00 expended on Inventions 
— Nearly 200 Patents secured — Some of his discove- 
ries and what they do — The most remarkable man of 
the age, -------- 13 

Personal Description — Of medium size — Fine looking — 
Companionable — Unostentatious — Indomitable energy 
— Perseverance — Industry — An interesting anecdote, 15 

In the Laboratory — Description of Edison's Workshop — 
A dismantled Megaphone — Talking by Steam — Electric 
Pen — Chemical telegraph printing — Phonomotor — The 
Phonograph sings a song — The Carbon Button — Mid- 
night in the Laboratory — Phonographic Toys — Inci- 
dents, ---------18 

Edison's Early Life — His nativity — Childish amusements 
— His ancestry — Mrs. Nancy Elliott Edison — Edison's 
happy home — Early Education, - - . - - 26 

Edison as "Train Boy" — His Success in selling apples, 
toys, periodicals, etc., on the train — How he used the 
Telegraph — He starts a Newspaper — The Edison Du- 
plex — His Laboratory on wheels — A great mishap — 
Young Edison pitched off the train, - - - 



Early Reminiscences, - - - . . 

The Young Electrician — He buys a book on Electricity — 
Extemporizes a short line — The Tom Cat Electrical 
Battery — A daring feat in front of a locomotive — The 



37 
46 



young son of Thunder getting down to business — An- 
ecdotes, 47 

The Young Operator — His engagement at Port Huron — 
' Resigns— Goes to Stratford — Rigs an ingenious ma- 
chine — Telegraphing by steam, - , , - - 53 

The Young Inventor and Operator — Invents an instru- 
ment — Tells the boys to "rush him" — Fidelity re- 
warded — Becomes a first class operator, - - - 56 

Edison's Ups and Downs — The Inventor vs. the Oper- 
ator — Thunder all 'round the horizon — Footing it in 
Tennessee — Off for South America — "Run" on a bank 
— Incidents, - . - . . - - - 58 

Young Edison in Boston — Departs for the "Hub" — Snow 
bound — His Reception — ^Joke on the Cockroaches — 
Inventions — The girls, - - . - - 62 

Edison in New York — Penniless and hungry — The supreme 

moment — Brains — His great success, - - - 64 

Edison in Newark, - - - - , 66 

Edison's Courtship and Marriage, - - - 67 

In Menlo Park, - - - - - 69 

Edison's Principal Inventions, . - - - 71 

The Quadruplex, - - - - - 73 

The Phonograph — The Edison and Faber "Talking Ma- 
chines" — Phonograph fully explained — Its fidelity in 
reproducing sound — What we may expect from it, •75 

Possibilities of the Phonograph — A short hand reporter 
— Elocutionist — Opera Singer — ^Teacher of Languages 
— Its medical possibilities, - - ... 80 

The Phonograph's arrival "Out West" — It visits Chi- 
cago — Is interviewed by a reporter — ^A modern mira- 
cle — How it talked — What it had to say, . - - 82 



Phonographic Records under the Microscope — How 
the letters look — Believed by Edison to be legible — 
The deepest indentations made by consonants, - 85 

The Phonograph supreme at home, - ' - - 88 

"Uncle Remus" and the Phonograph, - - - 89 

Moses and the Toddygraph, . - - - 90 

How the "Phonograph man is said to amuse himself, 91 

How the Phonograph frightened a preacher, - 92 

How the Phonograph was discovered by Mr. Edison, - 93 

Edison joking with the Phonograph, - . 94 

Edison's Electric Pen. - - - - - 95 

The Electro-Motograph — A curious instrument — How it 

works — Four hundred moves in a second, - - 96 

The Telephone — Edison's own account of his discovery of 
the Carbon Telephone — An interesting history — His 
explanation of the wonderful instrument — Illustrated 
by numerous engravings — It talks over a wire 720 miles 
long — His other Telephones, - - - - - 98 

Testing Edison's Telephone — A little chat intermingled 
with whispers between persons 210 miles apart — An 
innocent joke perpetrated on Mr. Firman — Complete 
success of the Carbon Telephone, - - - - 112 

Wonderful olfactory powers of the Telephone, - 115 

BURDETTE and EdISON TESTING THE SpANKTROPHONE, - Il6 

Eli Perkins AND Mr. Edison, - - - 117 

Satisfactory Evidence, - - - - -118 

Dawdles TRIES THE Telephone, - - - 119 

Telephone and THE doctors, - - - - 120 



The Telephonograph, - ^ ^ 121 

Edison's "Baby," - - - - -121 

The Megaphone, - - - - - 122 

The Sonorous Voltameter, - - - - 123 

Edison Joking his Friends, - - - 123 

Down IN the Gold Mines, - - - - 124 

Edison's Anecdote of the Rocky Mountain Scouts, 135 

The Tasimeter or Thermopile — An instrument that 
measures the heat of the stars — How it is done — Full 
account of its discovery, - - - 126 

The Tasimeter and the Stars, - - - 128 

Testing the Tasimeter on th^ Sun's Corona, 129 

Basis of the Tasimeter, - - - - 132 

Pressure Relay, - - - - - 136 

The Carbon Rheostat, - - - - 138 

The Aerophone, - - - - - 140 

Edison's Phonometer. - - - - - 142 

Edison's Harmonic Engine, - - - 144 

The Motograph Receiver, - - - - 146 

Etheric Force, - - - - - 147 

The Electric Light — The ages slow to learn — Edison's 
Light vs. Jablochkoff's et al. — Subdivision of the fluid 
— Platinum and Iridium essential factors — How the 
Light appeared to a visitor — Carbon Candle, - - 148 

Edison's Explanation of his Electric Light — How the 

Electricity is generated — How the light is produced, 154 




Thomas Alva Edison, . . - Frontispiece. 

House in which Edison Was Born, - - - 27 

Continental Bill, ----- 29 

Samuel Edison, - - - - - -31 

Mrs. Nancy E. Edison, - - - - 31 

Young Edison's Mishap — Car on Fire, - - 36 

Printing THE "Grand Trunk Herald" on the Train, 39 

Young Edison Pitched into the River. - - 43 

The Cat Battery Experiment, - - - 49 

Young Edison Rescuing a Child, - - - 50 

Edison Telegraphing by Steam, - - - ^ 55 

The Quadruplex, - - - - - -74 

The Phonograph in operation, - - - 75 

Dla-gram of the Phonograph, - - - - 78 

Phonograph Records under th2 Microscope, - 87 

Electric Pen, - - - - - - 95 

The Telephone, (Interior,) - - - - 98 

The Telphone, (Exterior,) -' - - - 98 

Telephone Apparatus, ... « - 104 



Telephone Apparatus, with switch, - - - 105 

Lever Signal, - - - - - 106 

Tuning Fork Signal, - - - - -107 

Pendulum Signal, - - - - - 107 

Electrophorous Telephone, - - - - 108 

Electro-Static Telephone, - - - 109 

Electro-Mechanical Telephone, - - - 109 

Water Telephone. . - - - - no 

The Telephonograph, - - - - 121 

The Tasimeter, - - - - - 128 

Micro-Tasimeter, (perspective,) - - - 133 

Micro-Tasimeter, (in section,) - - - 133 

Micro-Tasimeter, (entire,) - - - - 133 

Pressure Relay, - - - - - 137 

Carbon Rheostat, (perspective,) - - - 139 

Carbon Rheostat, (in section,) - - - 139 

The Aerophone, (i) (2) - - . - 140 

The Phonometer, - - - - - 142 

Harmonic Engine, - - - - - 144 

Motograph Receiver, - - - - 146 

Electric Light, - - - - -153 

Edison's Electric Generator, - - - 155 

Edison's Electric Light, - - - - 157 



Edison and his Inventions. 



A Great Man. 



Over $450,000.00 Expended on Inventions— Nearly 200 Patents 

Secured — Some of His Discoveries and What They Do— 

The Most Remarkble Man of the Age. 

No man perhaps in the world's history, at the age of thirty- two 
years has accomplished so much in the line of useful inventions 
as Thomas Alva Edison. Nearly two hundred patents have been 
awarded and there are more to follow. Yet less than ten years 
ago, says our informant — his most intimate business friend — 
"young Edison was tramping the streets of New York City, pen- 
niless, and in want of food and clothes. " Since tllat time he 
has legitimately made by his own inventive genius and ex- 
pended over four hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and 
secured a permanent income almost equal to the salary of 
the President of the United States.. Of his numerous Amer- 
ican patents, thirty-five pertain to automatic and chemical tele- 
graphs, eight to duplex and quadruplex telegraphy, thirty-eight 
to printing telegraph instruments, fourteen to Morse's telegraph 
apparatus proper, and the remainder relate to fire alarms, district 
and domestic telegraphy, electric signals, the electric pen, the 
phonograph, carbon telephone, tasimeter, microphone, aerophone, 
electric light, and a great variety of electrical and non-electric 
apparatus. Professor Barker appropriately styles him "a man 
of herculean suggestiveness; not only the greatest inventor of the 
age, but a discoverer as well; for, when he cannot find material 
with the properties he requires, he reaches far out into the regions 
of the unknown, and brings back captive the requisites for liis 
inventions. " 



14 THOMAS A. EDISON 

By his automatic system one thousand words per minute are 
possible over a single wire; by his quadjuplex, four distinct and 
different messages pass over the wire at the same time; by his 
phonograph all shades of sound are preserved and may at 
any time be reproduced; by his carbon telephone all shades 
of sound pass over the long wires to be distinctly heard many 
miles away, and by his electric light, night with its darkness is ex- 
pected to disappear from the arena of civilization. Thus the 
wide world, every day, by this great man, is being brought into 
closer proximity, with its facilities for communication, business, 
social life and pleasures almost infinitely augmented. 

Well may a leading journal of this country remark: "There 
can be no doubt that Mr. Edison, the inventor of the phono- 
graph is one of the most remarkable men of the present century. 
His improvements in telegraphic apparatus, and in the working 
of the telephone seem almost to have exhausted the possibilities 
of electricity. In hke manner the discovery of the phonograph 
and the application of its principles in the aerophone, by which 
the volume of sound is so amplified and intensified as to be made 
audible at a distance of several miles, seem to have stretched 
the laws of sound to their utmost limit. We are inclined to re- 
gard him as one of the wonders of the world. While Huxley, 
Tyndall. Spencer, and other theorists talk and speculate, he 
quietly produces accomplished facts, and, with his marvelous 
inventions, is pushing the whole world ahead in its march to the 
highest civilization, making life more and more enjoyable. " 

It is a singular fact that Mr. Edison's inventions have been 
confined mainly within the domain of electrical phenomena. 
This is the grand new field in which his experiments have been 
so successful. Happy man. Here he concentrates and dis- 
tributes, intensifies and multiplies, and no one xan tell when oi 
where he will cease in the great work. We smile now at the 
French scientists, who not many years ago pronounced the fea- 
sibility of steam navigation "a mad notion, a gross delusion, an 
absurdity." So we do at the ancient London editor who wrote 
it down in his Quarterly that "he would rather trust himself to 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 15 

the mercy of a Congreve rocket than ride on a railroad train 
moving at the rapid rate of eighteen miles an hour I" Nature is 
broad and nature is deep. Her possibilities are infinite. What 
we cannot see we may yet hear; what we cannot hear we may 
yet see; and what we can neither see nor hear, we may yet 
know. Edison's tasimeter localizes the heat of the most distant 
star, and though we neither see this, nor hear it, yet, to use a 
frequent phrase of the great inventor, "there she is." All honor 
to the really devoted seeker of truth. 

Not only is Mr. Edison's name known throughout the civilized 
world, but the world is feeling the stimulating power of his in- 
ventions. It has been well remarked that "these inventions have 
a moral side, a stirring optimistic inspiration," We ask, "What 
is there that cannot be?" Where are the limits of human in- 
vestigation? Where the confines of possibility? And, "what 
next?" We feel that there may be a relief for all human ills in 
the great storehouse of nature, and that we are not limited to the 
incomplete data for solving the problem of life already given ; 
they are to be indefinitely extended. 



Personal Description. 

Of Medium Size — Fine Looking — Companionable — Unostentatious — 

Indomitable Energy — Perseverance — Industry. 

An Interesting Anecdote. 

Mr. Edison is a pleasant looking rnan, of the average size, five 
feet ten inches high, fair complexion, with dark hair slightly 
silvered, and wonderfully piercing gray eyes. The latter are al- 
most veritable electric lights, and when engaged in deep thought, 
their look is intense, indicative of decided penetration and acute 
analysis. His features are well outhned in the engraving given, 
and show him to be a man remarkably adapted to his line of 
labor. He is now thirty-one years old. In his laboratory he is 
too studious to care much for his dress and general make up. 
On such occasons, he appears, like other hard-working men, 



i6 THOMAS A, EDISON 

often the "worse for wear," with acid-stained garments, dusty 
eye-brows, discolored hands and dishevelled hair. Under such 
circumstances he has been correctly noted by reporters as "con- 
sidering time too valuable to waste on personal decoration," his 
boots often "not blackened," and his hair appearing as if "cut 
by himself. " But at the proper time and place, when a better 
appearance is requisite, he is always equal to the occasion, being 
" clean shaven, " handsomely attired in the most approved style, 
wearing a number seven and seven-eighth silk hat, and is every 
whit a noble looking man. 

Mr. Edison is social by nature, and very companionable to 
those who enjoy his confidence. He loves to converse with 
those interested in his inventions, and particularly so if his dis- 
coveries are comprehended. His geniality has made for him a 
host of friends, and gathered about him a band of workers, some 
of whom have been with him for many years. In his family he 
is affectionate and generous, a kind husband and indulgent father, 
caring little for the ordinary mannerisms of life, and always 
reaching the point by the nearest road. Withal he has a well 
defined vein of humor that is always seen at the right time, and 
that not unfrequently assumes the aspect of a joke. Thus he 
occasionally threatens to adjust an invention of some kind to 
his gate at Menlo Park that will deter visitors from entering, per- 
chance knock them down, but the gate yet swings harmlessly 
and hosts of visitors go in and out. 

His personal tastes are very simple, and he is thoroughly un- 
ostentatious. When invited sometime since to a dinner at Del- 
monico's, he satisfied himself with a piece of pie and cup of tea, 
greatly to the astonishment of his host who wished to do "the 
handsome thing." On one occasion when tendered a pubhc 
dinner, he declined, stating that "one hundred thousand dollars 
would not tempt him to sit through two hours of personal glori- 
fication." Personal notoriety he dislikes, and aptly says "a man 
is to be measured by what he does, and not by what is said of 
him." 

His habits are peculiar, consequent upon his intense devotion 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 17 

to discovery. When in the throes of invention he scarcely 
sleeps at all, and does not go to his house — but thirty rods from 
his laboratory — for several days. At such times his meals are 
brought to him, for he has not yet discovered any method of 
getting along without food. "For ten years," says, Mr. Johnson, 
his co-laborer, "he has averaged eighteen hours a day." Says 
the same gentleman, "I have worked with him for three consec- 
utive months, all day and all night, except catching a little sleep 
between six and nine o'clock in the morning. " At Newark, on 
the occasion of the apparent failure of the printing machine he 
had taken a contract to furnish, he went up into the loft of his 
factory with five assistants, and declared he would not come 
down till it worked. It took sixty hours of continuous labor, 
but it worked, and then he slept for thirty. His perseverance, 
patience, endurance, determination and industry are very re- 
markable, and perhaps without parallel. The routine of his day, 
it is well said, "is a routine of grand processes and ennobling 
ideas. " 

The following story fairly illustrates the scope of Mr. Edison's 
labor in reaching a single point : In the development of the 
automatic telegraph it became necessary to have a solution 
that would give a chemically prepared paper upon which the 
characters could be recorded at a speed greater than two 
hundred words a minute. There were numerous solutions in 
French books, but none of them enabled him to exceed that 
rate. But he had invented a machine that would exceed it, 
and must have the paper to match the machine. "1 came in 
one night," says Mr. Johnson, his associate, "and there sat 
Edison with a pile of chemistries and chemical books that were 
five feet high when they stood on the floor and laid one upon 
the other. He had ordered them from New York, London and 
Paris. He studied them night and day. He ate at his desk 
and slept in his chair. In six weeks he had gone through the 
books, written a volume of abstracts, made two thousand experi- 
ments on the formulas and had produced a solution — the only 
one in the world — that would do the very thing he wanted 
2 



i8 THOMAS A. EDISON 

done, — record over two hundred words a minute on a wire two 
hundred and fifty miles long. He has since succeeded in 
recording thirty-one hundred words a minute." 



In The Laboratory. 

Description of Edison's Workshop — A Dismantled Megaphone- 
Talking BY Steam — Electric Pen — Chemical Telegraph 
Printing — Phonomotor — The Phonograph Sings 
A Song — The Carbon Button — Mid- 
night in the Laboratory — 
Phonograph Toys — 
Incidents. 

In 1876 Mr. Edison sold his machinery at Newark, and moved 
his family to Menlo Park, N. J., a retired and romantic point on 
the Pennsylvania Railroad, twenty-four miles from New York. 
Here, on the crest of a hill, remote from other buildings, he 
has erected a laboratory. It is a plain, white, wooden building, 
28x100 feet, two stories . high, and full of wonders. In one 
room on the ground floor he has a machinery apartment, in which 
is located a ten-horse-power engine, and a collection of expen- 
sive tools, so that any appliance, however intricate, can be made 
under his own inspection. In another room are ranged on 
shelves and in cases the models of a large number of his experi- 
ments and inventions. Here are also to be found many instru- 
ments of precision which he has purchased at great cost to assist 
in his investigations. His library is entirely scientific, and costly, 
but not large. On the upper floor he has ranged upon shelves 
thousands of bottles of chemicals, and he makes it a rule to pur- 
chase some of every known chemical or mineral to have at hand 
in case of need. Here he conducts his experiments under his 
personal supervision. He has always with him three or four as- 
sistants, whom he has selected on account of their skill as 
draughtsmen or workmen, willingness to comply with his wishes, 
and their physical endurance, which, with him, is an important 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 19 

consideration. Messrs. Charles Batchelor, Scotch, and James 
Adams, Irish, and Mr. Kreuzi, of German descent, are the prin- 
cipal assistants, but sometimes he has fifteen or more persons 
employed exclusively in developing his inventions. 

It is in the laboratory, and amid the great number of his 
wonderful inventions, that Mr. Edison is most "at home." Here 
he is "monarch of all he surveys. " If the visitor, remarks a writer 
in Scribner^ be one of those who have known Edison only by 
the phonograph, a series of startling surprises awaits him in the 
tour of the curious laboratory which he will hasten to make. 
Here lie the dismantled portions of the "megaphone," — a great 
speaking-trumpet and two ear-trumpets, which in use are to be 
mounted together upon a tripod. Provided each with such an 
instrument, two persons can converse in an ordinary tone some 
miles apart. "From the hollow yonder behind the red-roofed 
house," says the inventor, pointing over the pleasant rural pros- 
pect, "a whisper can be heard." The disadvantage of the in- 
strument at present is that it collects irrelevant, intervening 
sounds, even the twitter of birds and the munching of cows in 
the grass coming into it, as well as what is designed for it. For 
this reason it can be tested best of still nights. No doubt there 
are inhabitants of the vicinity who, hearing strange whisperings 
at midnight, and perhaps catching glimpses of figures gliding, 
with lights and equipments of vague, ominous import, have been 
satisfied to leave these phenomena uninvestigated, and have 
turned back with a re-awakening interest to anecdotes of the 
doings of the powers of darkness — if, indeed, they did not dream. 

Here is the project of the aerophone, the great voice two hun- 
dred and fifty times the capacity of the human lungs, which is to 
shout from light-houses from ships at sea, from Bartholdi's statue 
towering god-like above our harbor. Its principle is simple, with 
a simplicity that constitutes a part of the greatness of these in- 
ventions. There is a mouth piece as in the telephone and pho- 
nograph, but the vibrating disk here, instead of breaking and 
closing an electric circuit, as in the one, or dotting a sheet of tin- 
foil as in the other, flutters the valve of a steam-jet, whicli 



20 THOMAS A. EDISON 

takes the tones of the voice and sends them on to the limit 
of its capacity. Again, we make drawings and autographic 
writings with the electric pen. It is a steel point vibrated by a 
small battery, and cutting the writing through the paper, which 
may then be used as a stencil for hundreds of impressions. 
There will be a tool on the same principle, with a diamond point, 
to act like a sand-blast for engraving gems. Next, we come 
to an electromotograph which proceeds by the difference in fric- 
tion of a metal tip upon certain chemically prepared papers and 
would have supplied the place of an electro-magnet if it had not 
already existed. Then we turn to a harmonic engine, a tuning- 
fork electro-magnet two feet six inches long, which will pump, if 
put to such use, three or four barrels of water a day at a cost of 
almost nothing. There are systems of chemical telegraphic 
printing, and one by which the sender of a message is to trans- 
mit his own handwriting. The writing is in a white ink which 
rises in strong relief from the paper. An apparatus for the use 
of the blind who read, as is known, by the touch, is projected 
also from the same material. There exist already, or are in pro- 
gress, an electric shears for cutting heavy materials; an electric 
engine for embroidering; others for revolving the limes of cal- 
cium lights and the goods in a show-window; a talking box; a 
flying bird to go a thousand feet; and a phonomotor, in which a 
wheel which resists the force of the hardest blowing is revolved 
easily by the sound of the voice. 

These are examples taken at random. They show, whether 
actually realized, or yet in embryo, the character of studies going 
on in what it is fair to call one of the most remarkable places in 
the world. The man lacks our profoundest respect no longer. 
It has been seen that his success is not a case of luck in a single 
direction. There is nowhere such another ingenious mind, but 
there is also nowhere such a worker. There are not fortunes, if 
there were capacity, to carry on the business of pure scientific 
research on such a scale. His whole great establishment is oc- 
cupied not in manufacturing, nor primarily in projects for profit- 
able returns, — though these follow, — but in new reflections, new 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 21 

combinations, in wresting from Nature inch by inch the domain 
she would have kept hidden. He comes in the morning and 
reads his letters. He overlooks his men and the experiments 
of his assistants. The element of hazard enters into these 
somewhat. There are a great number in progress, — the action 
of chemicals upon various substances or upon each other, or the 
phenomena of substances subjected to the various forces at com- 
mand. Strips of ivory, for instance, in a certain oil in six weeks 
become transparent. A globule of mercury in water, then with 
a little potassium added, takes various shapes for the opposite 
poles of the battery, retires coquettishly or is attracted, forms in 
whirlpools, changes color, or becomes immobile. There is no 
use at once for these results, but they are recorded in voluminous 
note-books. When the proper time comes they are borne in 
mind : some of them may form the connecting link in the chain 
of an invaluable discovery. Then perhaps he tests for the thou- 
sandth time his carbon telephone for new perfections, and then 
goes on carrying forward a step each of the works in progress, 
or becomes wholly engaged, according to his mood, in one. 

In spite of the fact that the motive of his retreat to Menlo 
Park was in good part to escape them, numerous visitors arrive. 
It is the Mecca of a continuous pilgrimage of scientists, report- 
ers for the journals, and curiosity-hunters. Yesterday a troop of 
one hundred and seventy-five persons brought by a gentleman 
who had asked the privilege of presenting a few friends, — to- 
morrow a special train of visitors from Boston is announced. 
He receives all affably, submitting himself and his inventions to 
be gazed at without reserve. One wonders, next to his phono- 
graph, at his good humor. 

"Still, I shall blow somebody up yet," he says, laughing. "I 
am considering the idea of fixing a wire connecting with a bat- 
tery that knocks over everybody that touches the gate." 

He sits down at the phonograph, fixes a double mouth-piece 
to it and summons one of his assistants, while another places 
himself at an organ in the corner. They sing in two parts "John 
Brown's Body. " As the sonorous music rises and fills the long 



2 2 THOMAS A, EDISON 

apartment, one gazes musingly yet with a secret thrill. It is like 
assisting at some strange, new rite, — a martial chant of rejoic- 
ing in the greatness of a new era full of subhme promise and the 
dissipation of mysteries. 

But it is at night that the great inventor is to be seen in his 
most characteristic aspect. He has the habit, acquired through 
the necessity of gaining solitude, of doing then his most import- 
ant work. It is not till midnight merely that it continues; it 
goes on far into the small hours of the morning. Then more 
than ever does the business in progress, the discussions entered 
upon, the speculations, the news reported, take an inspiring 
character that gives the ordinary matters of life a cast of pu- 
erility. It is a question of planets, of splendid forces, of essen- 
tial essences. One seems to be at a point where a hand is placed 
upon a lever connecting with the very heart of things. 

We go to where the preparation of the carbon buttons is in 
progress. The material is taken from lamp chimneys which are 
made to smoke as much as possible and is afterwards solidified 
by a powerful pressure. The inventor, bending solicitously 
among a dozen lurid lamps, ranged upon a brick fire-place, over- 
hung by a canopy, with the dark wreaths twisting about his head, 
has for the moment a wizard-like air. One might imagine him 
engaged in conjurations, summoning occult powers to his aid. 
But for the most part his air is as far from the wizard-like as pos- 
sible. As the night goes on, his hair is more than ever tumbled 
over his eyes and his appearance more nonchalant. It is much 
after midnight now. The machinery below has ceased to rumble 
and the tired hands have gone to their homes. A hasty lunch 
has been sent up. We are at the thermoscope. Suddenly a tel- 
egraph instrument begins to click. The inventor strikes a gro- 
tesque attitude, a herring in one hand and a biscuit in the 
other, and with a voice a little muffled with a mouthful of both, 
translates aloud slowly the sounds intelligible to him alone: 
"London, . News of death of Lord John Russell pre- 
mature. John — Blanchard — whose — failure — was — announced 
yesterday — ^has — suicided — [no, that was a bad one, succeeded\ — 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 23 

in adjusting — his affairs — and — will — continue — in business." 

Another writer describes his visit to the workshop as follows : 
The books, draughts, instruments and designs, together with 
the occupations of the inmates, gave it more the appearance of 
a reading-room at the Engineers' Club than of a workshop and 
laboratory. In most shops the engine is stopped and the men 
leave work the instant the hand is on the hour, even if many of 
them have not been slyly idling for half an hour and waiting for 
the signal to "knock off." Here the hours of work seemed to 
be limited solely by the interest of the workmen, while the in- 
terest itself appeared without limit. All that portion of the 
shop lying towards the road was brightly lighted, and there were 
present and occupied in various ways half-a-dozen of the men. 
On the table lay an open volume on which was stamped the 
words "Laboratory Notes," sunk deep into the Russia leather 
cover. As the writer glanced carelessly over the pages of man- 
uscript, with its frequent draughts and designs in ink, a friend 
said: "That is probably private. "• "Oh, no," answered one of 
the men sitting near, "there is nothing private here. Every one 
is at liberty to see all he can, and the boss (Edison) will tell 
him all the rest. He has taken out more patents than any other 
man in America, but he never made an attempt in his life to 
keep anything secret." At an adjoining table a workman was 
busily engaged in putting together the framework representative 
of an ancient negress, with a wide, grinning face, and whom one 
could almost imagine to be shaking her sides with laughter. She 
was seated in an arm-chair. As the mechanic silently turned a 
crank with a heavy balance-wheel, the automaton turned its 
grinning head from side to side, fanned itself with a palm-leaf 
which it held in its right hand, and tapped its right foot in time 
with "Mary had a Httle lamb," which it seemed to utter with its 
lips. This was followed by a number of plantation and other 
melodies dear to the Southern darkey's heart. The old lady's 
clothes certainly did not fit her, but they came as near it as they 
usually do to fitting an overdressed plantation woman, and the 
song was almost perfect as one heard its melody exactly follow- 



24 THOMAS A. EDISON 

ing the time kept by the tapping of the foot. It was the new pho- 
nograph toy, for the phonograph can be made to give a perfect 
voice to all the familiar automatic toys. It can be manufactured 
so as to retail at a cost of five dollars, and many a pleasant 
home will be made merry by the voice of the phonograph, which 
speaks all languages and sings all music, and which will be heard 
far and wide in the land. Three months have been spent in 
perfecting this toy. 

On the partition walls are a number of advertisements of tele- 
phonic exhibitions. East, West, and abroad. The latest of them, 
which came only recently, was a large pink-tinted Parisian 
poster announcing two daily exhibitions of the telephone of 
"Professor" Edison, the instrument to be used being the first 
which had ever been manufactured in France, the model, of 
course, having been furnished from this country. The instru- 
ment has been patented, not only in England, but in France and 
other countries of the Continent. 

One annoyance to which Mr. Edison has been obliged to 
submit as gracefully as possible has been the imposition of flam- 
ing posters and advertisements, not only in France, but in Amer- 
ica, in which he is loftily set down as "Professor." He lays no 
claim to any such title, and is not the man to assume any honors 
which do not legitimately belong to him. 

The shops and laboratories are filled with many thousands of 
dollars' worth of valuable and costly machines, some of them 
perfect and practicable : some of them experiments, and all 
of them delicate and of the finest adjustment. It is regarded 
by the people of the surrounding country as a sort of free 
mechanical museum, which they are always at liberty to visit 
and enjoy without money and without price, and one can scarcely 
go there without finding half a score of them engaged in some 
scrutiny or investigation, their rustic countenances covered with 
a look of owl-like wisdom. They may not be as wise as the tra- 
ditional serpent, but they are harmless as the dove, and it is sel- 
dom, indeed, that some of the workmen, if not Mr. Edison 
himself, cannot find time to give them the needed word of ex- 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 25 

planation. To most of them he is, indeed, a greater curiosity 
than any of his marvelous inventions can be. 

Bores are not wanting either, but they are principally of a 
class of men who have spent their lives in a partially successful 
effort to persuade themselves that they know something. With 
one of these Edison had rather a serious time. The man wanted 
an explanation of the principles involved in the the telephone- 
Edison is an enthusiast on the subject, and, becoming interested, 
he explained it forwards and backwards, within and without; ex- 
plained all around it, in fact, and received the usual answers : 
"Yes, I comprehend perfectly," Simple enough," etc., until there 
was nothing left to show. "Then," says Mr. Edison, "you can 
imagine how I felt when he said : *Yes, Mr. Edison, I understand 
it all except how the sound gets out again.' I thought he had 
understood it, and he hadn't. I gave him up." He has plenty 
of just such customers, drawn only by an idle curiosity, whose 
visits have only one result, — the display of their own ignorance. 

Another who visited Mr. Edison, says : Hatless and coatless, 
he stood in his laboratory, anxiously watching the operations of 
a lathe on a curious little machine, which he afterwards ex- 
plained was "a toy phonograph to amuse the children." 

The professor stopped his lathe to greet the writer, and said 
as he tried to smooth down a refractory lock of hair that per- 
sisted in standing up : "This little machine is for children exclu- 
sively. See, it will recite all sorts of nursery rhymes, " and the 
inventor shouted into it : 

Old Mother Hubbard she went to the cupboard, 

To get her poor dog a bone, 
But when she got there the cupboard was bare, 

And so the poor dog got none. 

"Now," he continued, "all you have got to do is to turn this 
little crank and grind it out." The crank was turned, and the 
little machine faithfully related the legend of the aged Mrs. 
Hubbard. "I'm going to make them with short sermons, Sunday 
school hymns, and prayers, " said Prof. Edison. 



26 THOMAS A. EDISON 

Edison's Early Life. 

His Nativity — Childish Amusements— His Ancestry — Mrs. Nancy 
Elliott Edison — Removal to Port Huron — 
Edison's Happy Home — Early 
Education. 

The first seven years of young Edison's early life were spent 
in Milan, Erie County, Ohio, where he was born February nth, 
1847. At this time Milan was a young, ambitious and prosper- 
ous town of three thousand inhabitants, located on the Huron 
River, at the head of navigation, ten miles from Lake Erie. 
It was the center of an extensive trade in grain, cooperage, 
ship-building, etc., that continued prosperously until the com- 
pletion of the Lake Shore Railway, a few miles South, when its 
business rapidly declined, and Milan almost ceased to exist. Its 
name, however, is now immortal, for it will always be known 
as the birth-place of Thomas Alva Edison. It is quite befitting 
that America should furnish the greatest of inventors, and 
equally so, that a central State, like Ohio, should include his vil- 
lage of nativity. Edison may be said to be the "product" of a 
free country, and appropriately heads the longest list of great 
inventors that history anywhere exhibits. And we are glad 
to say, like the ancient Roman, who always asserted with em- 
phasis his Roman citizenship, that Edison, too, rejoices in the 
fact that he is "an American citizen." He is proud of his na- 
tive land. 

Milan, with its little river, surrounding hills and grand old 
forests, salubrious clime and busy industries, proved an excellent 
basis of physical life for young Thomas. He was fond of the 
ramble and young adventure, and often indulged in innocent 
play on the banks of the Huron. He is said to have delighted 
in the construction of little plank roads, the excavation of little 
caves, and such like original pursuits. He never lacked for 
subjects, thus revealing "the dominant power" very early in life. 
From the first, he was a chubby, rosy faced, laughing boy. He 
is said to have known all the songs of the canal-men before he 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 



29 



was five years old, and "lisped in homely numbers, 'Oh, for a 
life on the raging canawl,' ere he had fairly learned his alphabet. " 
But his great heritage at Milan was the love and tender solic- 
itude of his parents. He had a careful, watchful father and a 
loving mother, to whom, Thomas Edison owes much, if not 
nearly all, that has made him great. 

His ancestry on the paternal side can be traced back two 
hundred years, when they were extensive and prosperous millers 
in Holland, In 1730 a few members of the family emigrated to 
America. 



un 



UNITED STATES 



nolSJJX 



^O 









a 



^' 









XL S)0iJjAiJi3. 



Tortj Dollars, 

This Bill entitles 
'^ the Bearer to re- 
ceive Forty SpanisH\ 
milled Dollars, or 
the Value thereof in 
Gold or Silvery ac- 
cording to a Re/olu- 
Hon paffed by Con- 
gre/s at Philadelphia 
Sept. 26//^ 1778. 






P?=fe 



m^amuiemf^i^^^iMm 



Continental Bill. 

Thomas Edison, great grandfather of Thomas Alva, was a 
prominent bank officer on Manhattan Island during the Revo- 
lution, and his name appears on the continental money. His 
signature is shown in the above engraving on a continental 
note, now over one hundred years old. He died in \he one 
hundred and second year of his age. The race is remarkable 
for its longevity. Thomas Alva's grandfather lived to be one 
hundred and three vears old. 



30 THOMAS A, EDISON 

His father, Samuel Edison, is now living, aged seventy-five, in 
perfect health, and able to attend to all the details of an ac- 
tive business life. He is six feet two inches high, and in 1868 
it is said, "outjumped two hundred and sixty menbelonging to a 
regiment of soldiers stationed at Fort Gratiot, Mich. " 

He was born August i6th, 1804, in the town of Digby, coun- 
ty of Annapolis, Nova Scotia, For a short time, and when quite 
young, he resided at Newark, N. J., and subsequently, at the 
age of seven, removed to the township of of Bayham, Upper 
Canada. He married Miss Nancy ElHott, an accomplished la- 
dy of Vienna, Canada, and came west in 1837, locating at Detroit, 
Mich., where he resided one year, and then moved to Milan, 
Ohio, and afterwards returned to Michigan in 1854. In his 
younger days he learned the tailor's trade, but subsequently 
entered commercial life, engaging in an extensive lumber 
business and afterwards becoming a produce merchant, in all 
which he has been sufficiently successful to amply provide the 
comforts of a happy home. He has always been in good cir- 
cumstances and was deeply interested in the home education of 
his son, paying him a fixed price for every book he read to 
encourage him in the work. 

Mrs. Nancy Elliott Edison, mother of T. A. Edison, was born 
in Chenango County, N. Y., January uth, 1810. She was of 
Scotch and English parentage, and highly educated. For seve- 
ral years she was a succesful and popular teacher in a Canadian 
High School. She died April 9th, 187 1, but her memory is stil 
dear to a long list of associates, many of whom speak of her as 
a Martha Washington. She was a fine looking, cultured, wel^ 
educated lady, endowed with great social powers, and beloved 
by a large circle of friends. For her son Thomg,s she always 
had the most tender affection. 

Wm. P. Edison, a brother of Thomas A., is a prominent busi" 
ness man in Port Huron, Mich., where he has resided for the 
last twenty-five years. Samuel Edison, the father, is also a resi- 
dent of the same city. A sister, Mrs. Homer Page, is a resi- 
dent of Milan, Ohio. This is the extent of the family. 




Samuel Edison. Mrs. Nancy E. Edison, 

Parents of Thomas A. Edison. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 33 

At the age oi seven young Edison and his parents removed 
from Milan to Port Huron, Michigan, where his father still 
resides. He soon became reconciled to his new home, and was 
the same cheerful lad on the -shores of the "narrow sea" that he 
had been on the banks of the little river. The family residence 
at Port Huron was among the largest and finest in that region 
of country, being a very roomy, good old fashioned white frame 
building, located in the center of an extensive grove, and at- 
tached to which was an observatory giving a glorious outlook 
over the broad river and distant hills. How far this remarkably 
pleasant home contributed in laying the mental and moral foun- 
dations of the great inventor is a matter of mere conjecture. 
Here, however, he lived, studying more or less for several years, 
at his mother's side, who by her great natural qualifications for 
such a work and by a mother's immeasurable love^, taught him, 
not only the "fundamental branches," but what is better, iki^love 
d^Yid. purpose of knowledge. There existed an unusual and su- 
perlative affection between the mother and her son. She seemed 
to love his very presence, and for this reason, young Thomas 
was taught at home, where he might constantly add to the pa- 
rental pleasures. It can be easily seen how Thomas Edison 
under such benign and potent influences became a well instructed, 
and we may add, a well educated boy; for he was taught the 
presence, power and possibilities of human resources, and what 
he himself might ultimately accomplish if "faithful to the end;" 
that the wide world was one great, broad field of activities, and 
that Nature was brimmed with law, order, the beautiful and good. 
His mother taught him not only "his alphabet, spelling, reading, 
writing and arithmetic," but also the great object of all learning. 
She was careful to implant the love of learning and fire the 
young mind with a burning desire to know more of the "great 
beyond." In this she succeeded to a degree commensurate with 
her efforts, for at the age' of ten, young Alva's mind was an 
electric thunder-storm rushing through the fields of truth. At 
this age he had read the "Penny Encyclopedias," "Hume's His- 
tory of England," "History of the Reformation,'* "Gibbon's 
3 



34 THOMAS A, EDISON 

Rome," Sears' "History of the World," several works on chem 
istry and other scientific books. He read them all with the ut- 
most fidelity, never skipping a word or formula. It is this won- 
derful habit of concentration, fired with the determination to 
reach "the point," that has led him to accomplish so many as- 
tonishing results. It is true that it must always remain a curious 
fact that such a man as Mr. Edison should never have at- 
tended the schools, that his name, now so great, was never en- 
rolled in any college calendar, and that in fact he never "went to 
school" more than two months in all his life. But may we not, 
yea, do we not, see again, for the thousandth time, the power 
and possibilities of a mother's love and labor, in training the child 
in the way it should go? Was not "his home, after all, his uni- 
versity? And was it not a good one, well officered, and well 
adapted to accomplish the real work? It is said his mother was 
a fine reader, and often read aloud to the family. Oh, how easy, 
in this way, to enkindle an interest, and impart the information 
that gives life to the young soul. Again we can trace the "be- 
ginnings" of another great hfe to a mother's love. This was the 
"main battery" that has sent out, and still sends its silent influ- 
ence over the long fine of Edison's life. It is a divine adjust- 
ment. Heaven's grand discovery for man, this mother's love! 
Though gone these many years, it is said Mr. Edison still greatly 
reveres his mother's name, and delights as her child, to "rise up 
and call her blessed. " 




AND HIS INVENTIONS. 37 

Edison as *'Train Boy." 

His Success in Selling Apples, Toys, Periodicals, etc., on the Train 
— How He Used the Telegraph — He Starts a Newspa- 
per — The Edison Duplex — His Laboratory on 
Wheels — A Great Mishap — Young 
Edison Pitched Off 
the Train. 

Young Edison began public life at the age of twelve as train 
boy on the Grand Trunk Railroad, between Port Huron and 
Detroit, a position selected by his father, because it afforded his 
son an opportunity to learn many important lessons in practical 
life, to earn something of a livelihood, and to enjoy, still, the 
pleasure of spending many a pleasant evening at home, at the 
Port Huron end of the line. In this new vocation, young 
Thomas was a "decided success." He sold figs, apples, toys, 
magazines, newspapers, and the entire inventory of things that 
make up the miscellaneous merchandize of the train boy. His 
business rapidly increased, and in a little while he was com- 
pelled to employ as many as four assistants. For the purpose 
of enlarging his business, and thus demonstrating his early gen- 
ius for invention, he soon hit upon the novel plan of telegraphing 
in advance of his train the head-lines of the war news columns, 
which were properly bulletined at the stations, and which caused 
his papers to "go off" at almost electric speed. His periodicals 
were purchased principally at the Detroit end from John Lan- 
igan, now of Chicago, who remembers him as an "honest boy, " 
who did a "cash business," toit when "time" was desired, it was 
always given, and the "Habilities" were promptly met. His av- 
erage daily earnings during the four years in which he continued 
in this work were something over one dollar, aggregating the 
neat sum of nearly two thousand dollars, all of which he turned 
over to his beloved parents. His habits of study and love for 
reading followed him into the new field, and led him in his early 
visits to Detroit to unite with the library association of that 
place. He undertook the herculean task of reading every vol- 
ume in that extensive collection. Commencing at the bottom 



38 THOMAS A. EDISON 

shelf, he actually read through a line of books fifteen feet in 
length, omitting no volume, nor skipping any part of a single 
book. The dusty list included, among others, Newton's "Prin- 
cipia," lire's Scientific Dictionaries, Burton's "Anatomy of Mel- 
ancholy," etc. After completing fifteen feet of the mammoth 
project, he gave up the job and thereafter selected more conge- 
nial material. He was an occasional reader of poetry and fic- 
tion. Victor Hugo was among his favorite authors. The "Les 
Miserables, " he read a dozen times, and has reviewed it perhaps 
as many times since. He regards the "Toilers of the Sea," by 
the same author, as a wonderful production. His memory is 
remarkably retentive, and from his vast field of research he has 
always been able to make extensive extracts, and can usually 
refer direct to the book and page for any information or fact 
needed for experiment and research. So extensive and thorough 
has been his earnest reading, that it is difficult to mention any 
subject about which he knows nothing. 

While disposing of his papers it soon occurred to young Edi- 
son, which is another demonstration of his inventive resources, 
that he might as well get up a paper of his own. Attached to 
the train was a springless freight car having a room set apart for 
smoking purposes, but which was so poorly ventilated and other- 
wise dilapidated that passengers seldom entered it. This was 
selected as the head center of his first grand enterprise. Three 
hundred pounds of type were purchased from the Detroit Free 
FresSf and very soon Edison was the editor and publisher of a 
little paper, twelve by sixteen inches, issued weekly, entitled 
"77ie Grand Trunk Herald/^ the columns of which were devoted 
to railway gossip, changes, accidents and general information. 
It was printed in the most primitive style, on one side only, the 
impressions being made by the pressure of the hand. It sold 
for three cents a copy, and reached a circulation of several hun- 
dred. On one occasion it came under the eye of the celebrated 
English engineer, George Stephenson, builder of the great tu- 
bular bridge at Montreal, who at once ordered an extra edition 
for his own use. It numbered among its contributors many 




Printing The Grand Trunk Herald on the Train. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 41 

worthy railroad men, and became quite celebrated as the only 
journal in the world printed on a railway train. Among its co- 
temporaries in which it received favorable mention, was num- 
bered the London Times. Edison was highly delighted with the 
new enterprise, and became in fact, a little Ben. Franklin, whose 
early history in this line, and ultimate success as an influential 
man doubtless greatly inspired the young editor of the Herald. 

Parallel with this novel enterprise and in the same old aban- 
doned freight car, Thomas Alva was prosecuting another and 
entirely different line of labor. From the very start he was a 
self-exhibition of the duplex system, which long afterwards ap- 
peared through his manipulations, in telegraphy. He procured 
a work on chemistry — Freseniu's Qualitative Analysis — pur- 
chased a supply of chemicals on the instalment plan, obtained 
some retort stands from the men in the railroad shops in ex- 
change for papers, and opened a laboratory. This was his first 
effort in the great world of chemical law. He saw at once the 
wonderful and varied attributes of material things; the endless 
existing affinities, and occult power and possibilities of the ele- 
ments. It was a new world in which he stood entranced. And 
from that time, on to the present, he has never ceased to delve 
into the subtle influence and mysteries of chemical science. 
The laboratory of the abandoned smoking car and the labora- 
tory on the hill at Menlo Park are in the same series. The real 
difference is simply a matter of wheels, which persisted in car. 
rying the former at the rate of thirty miles an hour, jostling and 
bumping and otherwise seriously interfering with the young 
chemist's experiments, while the latter stands stock-still at Menlo 
Park, and allows the distant whispers to jingle against the car- 
bon button, or permits the heat from the North Star whose light 
has been forty-seven years in reaching the earth at the rate of one 
hundred and eighty-four thousand miles per second, to quietly 
register itself on the scale of the tasimeter. Nevertheless, this 
difference of wheels ultimately proved a serious matter for young 
Edison. In this rudely constructed laboratory there was a bottle 
of phosphorus, from which one day the water had evaporated, 



42 THOMAS A. EDISON 

and which an extra jolt of the springless car tumbled to the 
floor. A scene of confusion, of course, followed. The car was 
ignited and a conflagration was imminent. The conductor 
rushed hurriedly, and we may add madly, to the scene of conflict 
and with difficulty extinguished the. flames. In his rashness, and 
to make it absolutely certain that such an event could not pos- 
sibly occur again, he unceremoniouly threw overboard, not only 
the chemicals of the entire laboratory, but also the printing 
establishment, and closed the fearful drama by soundly boxing 
young Edison's ears, and hurriedly ejecting him from the 
blazing train. What has become of this impetuous gentle- 
man, we do not know. Perhaps he is endeavoring to atone 
for his work as the gentlemanly conductor of the excursion 
trains, which, now and then, to accommodate scientists, friends 
and the curious, run from Boston to Menlo Park. Sad as was 
the event, it did not, however, discourage the young chemist and 
editor. He doubtless realized the importance of fire-proof 
smoking cars, and, if he had felt more amiable, at the time, 
towards railway officials, might have invented one, but in lieu 
of this, and with a better knowledge of phosphorus and human 
nature, he gathered up his scattered materials and located in 
what he deemed a much safer place, the basement of his father's 
residence at Port Huron. Here, as opportunity afforded, he 
continued his experiments in chemistry, and, in time, issued an- 
other petite journal entitled ^^ Paul Pry, " which was more after the 
regular plan of a newspaper, and every way an improvement on 
the "Jlera/d." 

It had a host of contributors and a long list of subscribers. 
But alas for all sublunary affairs. It was not long before an ar- 
ticle from a contributor appeared in the columns of this news- 
paper which, though Edison persistently claimed was not within 
the bounds of the legally libelous, yet gave great off"ence to a 
subscriber who at once sought the editor in chief, and finding 
him on the margin of the St. Clair, deliberately picked him 
up and pitched him into the river. It was an unexpected and 
hasty plunge bath, entirely involuntary on the part of young 




Edison Pitched into the River. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 45 

Thomas, but from which he soon emerged, safe and sound, with 
the conviction, however, not soon forgotten, that the Hfe of an 
editor is environed with no inconsiderable degree of danger. In 
the former great mishap fire was the essential factor; in the latter 
it was water! Thus early in life, and in a pecuhar manner, was 
the great inventor baptized with the two great elements. Nor 
was it an ordinary "sprinkle" either; in both instances it was a 
rousing "immersion!" 

Mr. Edison occasionally refers to this train boy period of his 
life, and always with much humor. When asked one day if he 
belonged to the class of train boys "who sell figs in boxes with 
bottoms half an inch thick?" he responded with a merry twinkle, 
"If I recollect right the bottoms of my boxes were a good inch." 
A daguerreotype of his train boy epoch is yet extant, which rep- 
resents the great inventor as a chubby faced boy in glazed cap 
and, with a bundle of papers under his arm. His lips are 
wreathed in smiles, and altogether he presents the appearance of 
a contented and happy little fellow. Such a life had, of course, 
its ups and downs, but after all, it was a profitable schooling for 
young Edison. Besides, during the four years he continued in 
this work he was always in daily reach of home, where his sor- 
rows as well as joys were promptly shared by those who could 
easily and gladly impart the essential lesson. The easy manner 
in which he disposed of his limited stock of merchandize, the 
use of the telegraph to aid in the disposal of his papers, the suc- 
cessful issuing of a weekly paper, the laboratory with its varied 
experiments, and the wonderful amount of solid reading that per- 
vaded all, clearly demonstrate that Mr. Edison at this age was 
not only a most extraordinary "train boy," but also a remarkable 
genius. The spirit of invention was upon him. The click of 
the "sounder" was riudible, and the "message" of his coming 
greatnefiS was an \^? way. 



46 THOMAS A. EDISON 

Early Reminiscences. 

Mr. Samuel Edison states that his son, T. A. E., never had 
any "boyhood days" in the common acceptation of that term. — 
From the first his inclinations were in the direction of machinery, 
and amusements, with steam engines and various mechanisms. 
It is not surprising therefore to find him at an early age perfect- 
ing, on a small scale, a working engine. When on the Grand 
Trunk line he frequently rode with the engineer that he might 
learn something about the mysteries of a locomotive, and on 
one occasion, to demonstrate his proficiency, while the engineer 
was asleep, ran a train nearly the entire trip, with the only 
mishap of pumping too great a quantity of water into the boiler, 
which being thrown from the smoke-stack deluged the engine 
with filth. ^ Occasionally, as he had opportunity, he would visit 
the railroad machine shops, where he always manifested the 
greatest interest in examining the machinery. 

He was always careful with his little labratory and would not 
allow his things to be tampered with by any one. To insure 
better safety he labeled every bottle in the establishment 
"poison." 

When excited, young Thomas was slow to cool down. The 
sequel to the dreadful cold water catastrophe, was that the name 
of the person — J. H. B. of Port Huron — who threw him into the 
river, was studiously kept out of the columns of Paul Pry. If 
Thomas had not been a good swimmer, that occasion might have 
been far more serious than it was. 

Edison's sister tells a good story of his childhood: "He 
tried to sit on eggs," she said. "What do you mean?" inquired 
the listener. "Why, he was about six years old, I should think, 
and he found out how the goose was sitting, and then saw what 
the surprising result was. One day we missed him, called, sent 
messengers, and couldn't find him anywhere. By and by, don't 
you think, father found him curled up in a nest he had made 
in the barn and filled with goose eggs and hen's eggs, — actually 
sitting on the eggs and trying to hatch them. " 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 47 

The Young Electrician. 

He Buys a Book on Electricity — Extemporizes a Short Line — The 
Tom-Cat Electrical-Battery — A Daring Feat in Front 
OF A Locomotive — The Young Son of Thunder Get- 
ting Down to Business — Anecdotf^. 

Edison's interest in telegraphy dates from the time when, as 
train boy, he sent the head Hnes of the war news columns over 
the wires in advance of his trains to be bulletined at the stations. 
In this novel and sucessful plan he saw at once the great advan- 
tages of the telegraph system, and made up his mind that he 
would very soon know more about it. He immediately pur- 
chased a standard work on the electric telegraph, and began its 
careful persual. Every day led him farther out into the exciting 
wonders of electrical science. He was pleased, delighted and 
amazed. A new world was discovered, marvelous and grand. 
An apocryphal power silently stole out from the acidulated 
metals and leaped two thousand miles per second. It laughed 
at space and time. There were things it seemed to love and 
things it hated, things to which it clung and things it would not 
touch. Now like the light of the sun, then silent and dark, yet 
ever moving, and exerting its strange incomprehensible force. 
Easily could he see the cup, the copper, zinc and acid, and 
could hear the chck of the sounder; but from whence and how 
comes this influence? That was the question. He studies the 
chemistries of the battery, and delves farther into his work on 
electricity. He concedes the wonders, but exclaims, "what I 
know not now, I may know hereafter. " 

It is under the conviction of this final exclamation that young 
Edison passes from the more theoretical into practical telegraphy. 
A short line is extemporized, connecting his new basement of- 
fice at home with the residence of his young assistant, James 
Ward, also of Port Huron. In its construction they used com- 
mon stove pipe wire, insulated with bottles placed on nails 
driven into trees, and crossed under an exposed road by means 
of a piece of an abandoned cable captured from the Detroit 



48 THOMAS A. EDISON 

river. The magnets used in connection with this primitive line 
were made of old wire wound with rags for insulation, while a 
piece of spring brass formed the all important key. It is said 
that these two young aspiring electricians, now the proprietors 
of a "short line" and evidently in high glee, "were somewhat 
mixed as to the relative value of dynamic and static electricity 
for telegraphic purposes and the first attempt to generate a cur- 
rent was by means of a couple of huge cats rubbed vigorously 
at each end of the line at an appointed time. " The only suc- 
cess attending this novel and gigantic effort was the complete 
and hurried riddance of the two great cats which, under the 
pressure of the moment, lit out at lightning speed and were never 
heard of afterwards. Had the "ground wire" in this case been 
properly adjusted, that is wound securely about the necks of the 
feline batteries, this unexpected phenomenon might have been 
avoided, and better success have followed. 

Mr. Reid in his "Memorial Volume, referring to this incident, 
says: 

"He had seen sparks emitted from a cat's back. Judging that 
there must be good battery where the indications were so strong, 
he inserted a tom.-cat in the circuit, using the fore and hind feet 
as electrodes. The connections, after some resistance, having 
been duly made, he tried to start an induced current by rubbing 
the cat's back, the incensed feline meanwhile giving him some 
forced telephone lessons, and in other ways objecting to his 
electrocratical operations. The experiment however was not 
without success. A tremendous local current and perfect elec- 
tric arc was produced, but it would not work the line, and was 
abandoned. The experiment illustrated the humor of the man," 

Had young Thomas and James demonstrated the feasibili- 
ty of cats for electrical purposes they would doubtless have 
received the homage of mankind. Long after this amusing 
event, Mr. Edison was forcibly reminded of the great leap made 
by his cat on this occasion, when he discovered what he be- 
lieved then and still believes, to be a "new kind of electricity," 
which is capable of causing a spark "to leap twenty feet in the 




mam 



The Cat Battery Experiment. 




Young Edison Rescuing a Child. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 51 

clear air" without effecting in the least manner the galvanometer. 

Soon after this experiment, in nowise discouraged, some old 
telegraph instruments and battery materials were purchased and 
a successful short line was established, which at that time was 
quite an achievement, it being among the first of the kind ever 
inaugurated. In a boy-like way his aspirations seemed now 
crowned with success. He was not only an electrician, but had 
constructed a telegraph line of which he was at once Superin- 
tendent, proprietor and operator. Whether he posted up his 
"Rules and Regulations," scheduled his "rates" and forwarded 
night messages at half price, etc., is not known, but it is quite 
likely something of this kind was done. All this however 
was but a high order of boyish sport ; a toying with heaven's 
lightning, and yet beneath it is the impulse to more real and 
grand achievements. 

The quadruplex, electro-motograph, phonograph, telephone, 
etc., were all here in germinal form and within microscopic range. 
At the end of the "short line," sat the young son of thunder, 
with a hand upon a rustic and slow moving key, that was des- 
tined to fashion another and better hne and mechanism that 
should pick up three thousand and one hundred full words in a 
single minute! 

Soon after this an event occurred that proved a turning point 
in Edison's life. It was a daring, but successful effort made to 
rescue the life of a Httle child. J. A. Mackenzie, station agent 
and operator at Mt. Clemens, near Port Huron, had a dear httle 
boy only two years old, which one day crept on the track just 
in tront of a rushing train. A moment more and its mangled 
form would have been quivering in the dust. Young Edison 
saw the impending danger. He flew to the rescue and at the 
point of his own life, rescued the child. It was a noble deed, 
and out of gratitude, the father, volunteered to teach youn"- 
Edison how to become an operator. 

This offer was gladly accepted and thereafter Thomas Alva, 
after reaching Port Huron would return by freight train to Mt. 
Clemens in order to learn, at night, the lessons that were to 



52 



THOMAS A. EDISON 



perfect him in liis newly chosen and interesting employment. 

A warm friendship existed from the first, between Mr. Mac- 
kenzie, the teacher, and young Edison, the pupil, which to this 
day continues, though we believe now, Mr. Edison is the teach- 
er. It was with Mr. Mackenzie and at Menlo Park that Mr. 
Edison, only a few day's since, perpetrated a little pleasantry. 

"Look here" says Edison, "I am able to send a message from 
New York to Boston without any wire at alL" 

That is impossible, says Mackenzie. 

Oh, no ! says Edison. Its a new invention. 

Well, how is it done, Al! says Mack. 

By sealing it up and sending by Maill! 

The old gentleman laughed heartily at the joke. 



IvCoirso A 1 ]pl:ia,"t3et. 



A B 


C D E 


F G 


H I 


J K L 


M N 


O P 


Q R S 


T U 


V 


W X Y 


Z & 




NUMERALS. 




I 


2 3 4 


5 


6 


7 8 9 


o 




PUNCTUATION MARKS. 




Period. 


Comma. Semi-colon. 


Quotation. 


Parenthesis. 


Interrogation. Italics. 


Paragraph. 


Exclamation. 







AND HIS INVENTIONS, 53 

The Young Operator, 

His Engagement at Port Huron — Resigns — Goes to Stratford — 
Rigs an Ingenious Machine — Telegraphing By Steam! 

Edison was yet a boy, being only fifteen years of age. But 
in five months after he began taking lessons of Mr. Mackenzie 
at Mt. Clemens, he was sufficiently advanced in the art of 
sending messages to procure employment in the telegraph office 
at Port Huron. The salary was $25.00 per month, with the 
understanding that he should have extra pay for extra work. 
The office was in a jewelry store and, as usual, Edison indulged 
in his mechanical inclinations. He worked, however, very in- 
dustriously at the key, night and day, that he might improve 
himself as an operator. 

After six months of hard labor, on finding his pay for extra 
work, witheld, he at once resigned, and left Port Huron, for 
Stratford, Canada, where he engaged as night operator. Here 
he applied his ingenuity in a novel way, which shows at least, 
how fertile must have been the young operator's brain. The 
operators were required to report "six" every half hour to the 
Circuit Manager. Young Thomas instead of reporting, in 
person, rigged a wheel with Morse characters cut in the circum- 
ference in such a way that when turned by a crank it would 
write the figure "six" and sign his office call. The watchman 
turned this wheel while Edison slept. 

His stay at this point was brief. One night the dispatcher 
sent an order to hold a train. Edison repeated back the mes- 
sage before showing it to the conductor. When he ran out for 
the purpose the train had pulled off from the side-track and was 
gone. When the dispatcher was notified, the opposing train 
was beyond reach. Fortunately the two trains met on a straight 
track and no accident happened. The railroad Superintendent 
sent for Edison and so frightened him with threats of imprison- 
ment that, without getting his wardrobe, he started for home, 
and was greatly delighted to reach his native land. 

His ready ingenuity was shown in an early instance of facile 



54 THOMAS A. EDISON 

adaptation of the processes of his new profession to novel circum- 
stances. One day an ice-jam broke the cable between Port 
Huron in Michigan and Sarnia on the Canada side and stopped 
communications. The river is a mile and a half wide. It was 
impassible and no present means existed of repairing it. Young 
Edison jumped upon a locomotive and seized the valve con- 
trolHng the whistle. He had an idea that the scream of the 
whistle might be broken into long and short notes, correspond- 
ing to the dots and dashes of telegraphing. 

The whistle sounded over the waters : Toot, toot, toot, toot — 
toot, toooot — toooooot — toooooot — toot-toot — toot-toot, 

"ZT^//^^.^ Sarnia! Do you get me?" 

"Do you hear what I say?" 

No answer. 

"Do you hear what I say, Sarnia?" 

A third, fourth and fifth time the message went across without 
response, but finally the idea was caught by an operator on the 
other side; answering toots came cheerfully back, and the con- 
nection was again established. This novel incident was a 
feather in young Edison's cap and his praises were sounded 
abroad. 

He spent a few weeks at Port Huron in study, but operators 
were in demand, and he obtained a situation at Adrian, Mich. 
Here he had a small shop and a few tools, where his spare time 
was used in repairing instruments and making such experiments 
as he had the means to accomplish. It was then a peculiarity 
of the Morse telegraph system that only one message at a time 
could be sent on a wire. On one occasion when he had some 
message from the Superintendent he insisted on taking the line 
from all comers. The Superintendent of Telegraph lived in the 
same town and had an instrument in his house. Hearing the 
tussel on the wire, he rushed to the office, pounced upon young 
Edison, and discharged him for violation of rules. He, however, 
at once found a position as night operator in Fort Wayne where 
he made rapid progress in his work and in two months was en- 
engaged at Indianapolis. 




Edison Telegraphing by Steam. 



56 THOMAS A. EDISON 

The Young Inventor and Operator. 

Invents an Instrument — Tells the Boys to "Rush Him " — Fidelity 

Rewarded — Becomes a First Class 

Operator. 

While operating at Indianapolis, young Edison invented his 
first successful telegraph instrument. It was an automatic re- 
peater which transferred the writing from one telegraph line into 
another line without the medium of a sending or receiving operator. 
It was considered an important achievement for one so young 
and is described in a recent work on telegraphy, as "probably the 
most simple and ingenious arrangement of connections for a 
repeater known, and has been found to work well in practice. 
It is especially good and convenient where it is necessary to fit 
up a repeater, in an emergency, with ordinary office instru- 
ments. " 

Edison's ambition as an operator was, like that of most opera- 
tors, to be able to take what is called "press report." To accom- 
plish this end he practiced at night incessantly and was finally 
awarded a trial, but finding himself making too many "breaks," 
or interrogations, he adjusted two more recording registers, 
one to receive and the other to repeat the embossed writing at 
slower speed, so it could be copied. When this new arrange- 
ment was properly adjusted, young Edison felt very secure and 
at once announced to the sending operator to "rush him." This 
gave him a brief reputation as a receiving operator, but, alas for 
the press reports, they came in too slowly, which caused com- 
plaint and he was suspended from the work and afterwards trans- 
ferred to Cincinnati. 

Here he worked a day wire and continued to practice at 
night, always "subbing" for the night men whenever he could get 
the privilege. His fidehty and industry were finally rewarded in 
this city and in the following manner. 

After he had been in Cincinnati three months a delegation of 
Cleveland operators came down to organize a branch of the 
Telegraphers' Union, which resulted in a great strike among 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 57 

the operators. They struck the office in the evening, and the 
whole force, with one exception, went off on a gigantic spree. 
Edison came round as usual to practice, and finding the office so 
nearly deserted took the press report to the best of his ability, 
and worked through the night, clearing up business. The fol- 
lowing day he was rewarded by an increase of salary, from $65 
to $105 per month, and was given the Louisville wire, one of 
the most desirable in the office. Mr. R. Martin, known among 
the craft as "Bob Martin," one of the fastest senders in the 
country, worked the Louisville end, and from the experience 
here acquired, Edison dates his ability as a first-class operator. 

Young Edison's ambition, however, was not at rest when he 
found that he could jingle the key as rapidly as Bob Martin. 
Beyond this were higher aims ot which Bob never dreamed and, 
which so wholly absorbed Edison's mind that it not unfrequently 
was the cause of apparent neglect in what, to the average mind, 
seemed very essential. He had already invented his automatic 
repeater, but he saw other principles possible to be utilized and 
these occupied his mind. He cared little for dress and was 
willing to work at all hours, night or day, but he would not relin- 
quish his efforts to solve what appeared to his companions, utter 
impossibihties. These efforts were rewarded by the production 
of a remarkable steam engine and the discovery of his duplex 
transmission basis. 

So intensely did these points occupy his mind and so positive 
was he of duplex transmission and other possibilities of great 
importance in telegraphy, and which long ago he has made prac- 
tical, that his companions dubbed him with the title of "luny, " 
or crazy man, a name which clung to him for years. But other 
good men had been served in the same manner and he was not 
discouraged. Notwithstanding this insulting title Edison had 
the good will ol his associates. He continued his extensive re- 
search and reading, and as opportunity afforded, indulged in such 
experiments as tended to demonstrate his convictions in electri- 
cal science. 



58 THOMAS A. EDISON 

Edison's Ups and Downs. 

The Inventor vs. the Operator— Thunder all Round the Horizon 

— Footing it in Tennessee — Off for South America — 

" Run " on a Bank — Incidents. — 

In 1864, young Edison went to Memphis where he obtained a 
more remunerative salary. But his associates were dissolute and 
imposed upon his good nature to such an extent that the work 
he did was enormous. Abstemious himself almost to stoicism, 
he freely loaned his money to his companions or expended it in 
the purchase of books and apparatus. While here, and still but 
a boy of seventeen, he made and put into operation his auto- 
matic repeater, so that Louisville and New Orleans could work 
direct, thus saving the work of one operator and receiving a 
compliment for his ingenuity. 

The idea of duplex transmission had taken possession of him, 
and he was perpetually advocating and experimenting to ac- 
complish it. These efforts were looked upon with disfavor by 
the management, and in the changes resulting upon the transfer 
of the lines from the Government to the Telegraph Company 
Edison was dismissed. 

Being without money, and having transportation to Decatur 
only, he walked to Nashville, where WiUiam Foley, an operator 
in the same predicament, was found, and they traveled together 
to Louisville. Edison had only a linen suit, and on arriving at 
Louisville he found the weather extremely chilly. He hunted 
up a friend who loaned him money for his immediate need. 
Foley's reputation, it is said was too bad to obtain a situation for 
himself, but he recommended Edison, who obtained work. For 
this service Edison supported Foley till he could get employ- 
ment. 

Edison describes the Louisville office at this time as a fearful 
place. Rats in great numbers kept the operator company at 
night. The discipline was lax in all things except the quality 
and promptness of work. Edison was required to take reports 
on a line worked on the blind side of a repeater, where he had 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 59 

no chance to break. This required skill, and he attained to a 
rare perfection by the most careful study ot names, markets, and 
general information. 

The line was old and in poor condition, being subject to many 
interruptions and changes. To assist in his work, Edison was in 
the habit of arranging three sets of instruments, each with a 
different adjustment, so that whether the circuit was strong or 
weak, or no matter how rapid the change, he was able to receive 
the signals accurately. He remained in Louisville for nearly 
two years and then, owing to glowing reports which he had 
heard, made up his mind he would go to South America. 

Economy was now rigid, and funds sufficient, were soon amass- 
ed for the grand departure. In connection with two of his as- 
sociates, Messrs Keen & Warren, they finally started for the 
southern clime via New Orleans. On arriving at the latter 
place, the vessel upon which they were to ship had fortunately 
sailed. By a fortuitous circumstance, Edison fell in with a 
Spaniard who had traveled all around the world. He told the 
young adventurer that of all the countries he had ever visited, 
the United States was the best, having the most desirable 
government, institutions, climate, and people. This wholesome 
advice shook Edison's determination, and in connection with 
his disappointment, and delay, he resolved to go home. So he 
returned to Port Huron, via the Gulf and Atlantic States. 
After a pleasant visit among his relatives and friends Edison re- 
turned to Louisville, where he was again employed as an opera- 
tor. 

He now began work with renewed vigor and determination, 
saving his daily earnings to invest in additions to his library, 
apparatus, printing office and shop. New life was infused into 
all these departments and in a short time he had prepared a 
volume on electricity which he proposed to issue from his own 
office, but the undertaking was too great for his limited facilities. 

He went into a most elaborate series of experiments, as was 
his custom when investigating any subject, to determine the 
most rapid and best-adapted style of penmanship for an opera- 



6o THOMAS A. EDISON 

tor's use. He finally fixed upon a slightly back-hand, with 
regular round characters, isolating the letters from each other, 
and without shading. This beautiful penmanship he became 
able to produce at the speed of forty-five words per minute, 
which is the extreme limit of a Morse operator's ability to 
transmit. A specimen of his penmanship is seen in Mr. Edison's 
autograph in the frontis-piece. Edison's description of the habits 
of his associate operators at this time is amusing in the extreme. 
Often when he went home from his work in the small hours of 
the morning he would find three of the boys on his bed with 
their boots, where they had crawled after an evening's dissipa- 
tion. He would gently haul them out and deposit them on the 
floor, while he turned in to sleep. 

During young Edison's stay in Louisville the telegraph office 
was removed to a building, fitted up with improved fixtures. 
The instruments, which in the old office were portable, in the 
new, were fastened down to tables and strict orders were issued 
from the proper authorities not to move a single instrument. 
This order not only interfered with Edison's convenience in tak- 
ing reports, but also seriously discommoded him in his experi- 
ments. He could not desist, and three sets of instruments were 
readjusted, so as to aid him in taking reports, and on one 
occasion he took every instrument out of the office for the 
purpose of trying an experiment. 

Directly beneath the new telegraph office were elegantly 
furnished banking rooms, the private office of which was under 
the battery room. This was richly carpeted. One night in 
trying to abstract some sulphuric acid for experimental purposes 
he tipped over the whole carboy. The acid ran through the 
floor and ceiling and fell upon the brussels and furniture below 
doing great damage. This proved the climax of endurance and 
Edison was at once discharged. 

Bidding good bye to Louisville and with some regrets for the 
damage done the bank furniture, Mr. Edison went immediately 
to Cincinnati where he obtained employment as a "report" 
operator. This was his second visit to this point. During his 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 



6i 



former stay he built an ingenious little steam engine and arranged 
his first duplex instruments. His second stay in Cincinnati was 
less popular on account of his continued experiments. He 
would get excused from duty, and take a bee-line to the Mech- 
anics' Library, where his entire day and evening would be spent 
reading the most ponderous electrical and scientific works. He 
remained in Cincinnati only a short time, and returned home to 
Port Huron. 

Thus young Edison went the "grand rounds.'* "It would be 
gratuitously malicious," sure enough, "to note so many queer 
mishaps, if they were thought to show a want of conscientious- 
ness. They seem to have been the result of an uncontrollable 
impulse. His inventions were calling him with a sort of siren 
voice and under the charm he was deaf and semi-callous to every- 
thing else." 




62 THOMAS A. EDISON 

Young Edison in Boston. 

Departs for the *' Hub" — Snow Bound — His Receptv>n — Joke on 
THE Cockroaches — Inventions — The Girls — 

Sooner or later "coming greatness" is apt to touch at Boston. 
Boston is a great city — the hub etc. Moody went to Boston. 
It was there he received that celebrated letter from his sister, 
charging him to beware of pickpockets, when, alas, he hadn't a 
nickel in the world. Of course young Edison went to Boston. 
He had a warm personal friend in the telegraph office in that 
city, M. F. Adams, who was anxious he should come and was 
ready to receive him. An expert was wanted in the Boston 
office to work a heavy New York wire. Several candidates had 
failed as the New York end was worked by the "York and Erie" 
operators, who, as a class, had the reputation of writing anything 
but the "Morse" alphabet. G. F. Milliken, the manager, offered 
the situation to Edison by telegraph, and he accepted. 

He started via the Grand Trunk, but the train was snowed in 
for two days near the bluffs of the St. Lawrence by a violent 
storm. The passengers nearly perished with cold and hunger. 
All resources for fuel and food were exhausted; a delegation 
was sent out to hunt for relief. They were gone so long another 
expedition was about starting in search of them, when they 
returned and reported a hotel not far distant where cigars were 
one cent apiece, and whiskey three cents a glass, and board 
fifty cents a day. A shout of relief went up from the crowded 
cars, and they were soon comfortably housed till the storm was 
over. Edison finally reached Boston all right. His reception at 
the telegraph office by the young operators was not as cordial as 
it might have been, owing, no doubt, to jealousy. The table at 
which he had been placed was in the centre of the room, located 
there, it is said, for the better enjoyment of his discomfiture. He 
noticed the arrangement, and says he would have died rathei 
than make a break. 

He arrived in Boston in 1868, and in the person of Mr. Milli- 
ken found the first superior officer who could appreciate hii 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 63 

character. Mr. Milliken was an accomplished gentleman, a 
thorough master of his profession, and an inventor of merit. He 
proved a faithful friend of Mr. Edison and in the secret excitement 
under which he seemed to labor, recognized the fire of genius. 
Edison's stay in Boston was congenial. There is a vein of humor 
running through his character, and he played a practical joke on 
the cockroaches which infested the office in great numbers. 

He placed some narrow strips of tin-foil on the wall connect- 
ing them with the wires from a powerful battery. Then he placed 
food on them in an attractive manner to tempt them. When 
these clammy individuals passed from one foil to the other they 
completed the battery connection, and with a flash were crema- 
ted, to the delight of the spectators. Edison started a shop in 
Boston, and gave all his spare time to it. He invented a dial 
instrument for private line use, and put several into practical op- 
eration. He made a chemical vote recording apparatus, but 
failed to get it adopted by a Massachusetts Legislature. He 
commenced his experiments on vibratory telegraph apparatus, 
and made trial tests between Boston and Portland. He matured 
his first private line printer, and put eight into practical opera- 
tion. From lack of means to pay for quotations his venture 
was not successful, and he sold out. This patent subsequently 
came into possession of the Gold and Stock Telegraph Compa- 
ny, and was considered to have a base or foundation value upon 
which many subsequent improvements were built. 

At one time he was invited to explain the operation of the 
telegraph to what he supposed was a girl's school. He forgot the 
appointment, and when found was putting up a line on a house- 
top. He went directly from his work, and was much abashed 
to find himself ushered into the presence of a room full of finely 
dressed young ladies. He was actually timid in ladies' presence, 
but his subject was understood, and the occasion passed pleasant- 
ly. He was introduced to a number of young ladies, who always 
recognized him on the street, much to the astonishment of his fel- 
low-operators not in the secret. 



64 THOMAS A. EDISOJSi 

Edison in New York. 

Penniless and Hungry — The Supreme Moment — Brains — His Great 

Success. 

Before his arrival in New York, in 1870, Mr. Edison, assisted 
by Mr. F. L. Pope, patent adviser of the Western Union Tele- 
graph Company, made a trial experiment of his duplex system, 
which though not fully satisfactory, was sufficiently convincing 
to engender absolute faith in its ultimate success. He then 
went to New York. The story of his arrival, remarkable ex- 
perience, and the supreme moment of final success, in this 
city, is narrated by one of his most intimate friends as follows : 
When Mr. Edison arrived in New York from Boston, where he 
was employed as an operator in the Western Union Telegraph 
office, he was absolutely penniless. He was unsuccessful in pro- 
curing work in any of the Tetegraph offices, and there is no 
doubt he suffered not only for food, but for clothes while he 
tramped the streets on the look out for a job. After three weeks 
of unavaihng effort, he by chance stepped into the office of the 
"Laws Gold Reporting Telegraph Co." The instrument which 
reported the gold market was out of order, and Mr. Laws the 
inventor of the system (George Laws, now of St. Louis, Mo.) 
was in despair, when Mr. Edison told him he thought he could 
make it work, and was giveih^n opportunity. In a few moments, 
the instrument was working as usual, and Mr. Edison had a situ- 
ation. This, it may may be said, was the start towards the name 
which he has since earned. From that time to the present date 
he has made by his own efforts and expended, the sum of nearly 
five hundred thousand dollars. 

The Indicator Company at once employed Mr. Edison to fill 
a responsible position and his discouragements were at an end. 
He immediately began the work of improving the Indicator and 
very soon invented his Gold Printer. His next advance was a 
co-partnership with Messrs Pope & Ashley and the introduction 
of the Pope & Edison Printer. A private line system was put 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 



6S 



in active operation, but was soon disposed of to the Gold and 
Stock Company. 

From this time on, T. A. Edison has been known and apprecia- 
ted. His success was hke the opening of a flower, the result of 
long and stupendous preparations, but blooming, at last, in a 
single day. For many years he has been retained in the service 
of the Gold and Stock Company and the Western Union Tele- 
graph Company at a large salary, they having the first option to 
purchase his inventions pertaining to telegraphy at prices agreed 
upon in each case. His inventions pertaining to the Gold and 
Stock Telegraph room replaced the old apparatus, and that 
system is interwoven with his inventions and improvements. 

Mr. Edison's final triumph is a matter of general congratula- 
tion, not only because his patient labors and long and dubious 
industries merited reward, but for the grand field it opened from 
which the world has received some of its best inventions. It 
has also its distinctive and impressive lessons. Perseverance 
conquers. Indomitable will is power. Ideas are everything. 
Deaf to all derision, determined, though often disappointed, 
decided, though often discharged, Edison went "right along" 
until the glad hours came. 




66 THOMAS A. EDISON 

Edison in Newark. 

Soon after the intimate relationship was formed between Mr. 
Edison and the Gold and Stock Company he removed to New- 
ark, New Jersey, where he established an immense electrical 
manufacturing establishment in which he employed over three 
hundred men. It was divided into three large shops and two 
laboratories. Electrical experiments were now the order of the 
day and Mr. Edison, at this time, claimed to be the busiest 
man in America. It was his grand opportunity. There was 
nothing to impede. Everything urged him on. His inventions 
multiplied, and soon he was described by the United States pat- 
ent commissioner as "the young man who kept the path to the 
Patent Office hot with his footsteps. " At one time he had forty- 
five distinct inventions and improvements under way. 

An idea of his determination and persistence can be gained 
from the following incident : He had been given an order for 
$30,000 worth of improved printers. The sample instrument 
had worked an experimental circuit, but the first instruments for 
practical use proved a failure. In vain he sought to remedy the 
defect, till finally, taking four or five of his best men, he went to 
the top floor of his factory, remarking that they would never 
come down till the printer worked. They labored continuously 
for sixty hours, and he was so fortunate as to discover the fault, 
and made the printers operate perfectly at an expense of 
$5,000. Such severe and protracted labors are common with 
him. He says after going without sleep more than the ordinary 
hours he becomes nervous, and the ideas flow in upon him with 
great rapidity. His sleep after these eff'orts is correspondingly 
long, sometimes lasting thirty to thirty-six hours. He knows no 
such division as day and night in his labors, and, when the in- 
spiration is upon him, pursues the investigation and experiment 
to the end. 

It is doubtful whether there has ever lived just such anothe^ 
character as Mr, Edison, whose time and energies have been 
given so devotedly and successfully to the discovery of practical 
inventions. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 67 

Edison's Courtship and Marriage. 

Edison was now master of the situation. He was the king 
of inventors, and far removed from dangers originating with su- 
perintendents, conductors, and such Kke dignitaries. Yet it 
cannot be said that he was "perfectly secure." In another direc- 
tion, entirely different, new influences were silently operating 
that soon demonstrated the young inventor to be not wholly 
invulnerable. It was trivial at first, but gradually became a 
serious matter. He was evidently within the influence of a pe- 
culiar magnetic battery, which he could not fully control. To 
get beyond the magic power was impossible. The sequel to all 
this was his marriage in 1873 to Miss Mary Still well, of New- 
ark, N. J. The medallion on the new silver dollar is pronounced 
an excellent profile likeness of Mrs. Edison. The story of his 
love and marriage is briefly told as follows : 

When he was experimenting, some years ago, with the little 
automatic telegraph system, he perfected a contrivance for pro- 
ducing perforations in paper by means of a key-board. Among 
the young women whom he employed to manipulate these ma- 
chines, with a view to testing their capacity for speed, was a 
rather demure young person who attended to her work and 
never raised her eyes to the incipient genius. One day Edison 
stood observing her as she drove down one key after another 
with her plump fingers, until, growing nervous under his prolonged 
stare, she dropped her hands idly in her lap, and looked up 
helplessly into his face. A genial smile overspread Edison's 
face, and he presently inquired rather abruptly: 

"What do you think of me, Httle girl? Do you like me?" 

"Why, Mr. Edison, you frighten me. I — that is — I " 

"Don't be in any hurry about telling me. It doesn't matter 
much, unless you would like to marry me. " 

The young woman was disposed to laugh, but Edison went on : 
"Oh, I mean it. Dont be in a rush, though. Think it over; 
talk to your mother about it, and let me know soon as conven- 
ient — Tuesday say. How will Tuesday suit you, next week 
Tuesday, I mean?" 



6S THOMAS A. EDISON 

Edison's shop was at Newark in those days, and one night a 
friend of his, employed in the main office of the Western Union 
Telegraph Company, in New York, returning home by the last 
train, saw a light in Edison's private laboratory, and climbed the 
stairs to find his friend in one of his characteristic stupors, 
half awake and half dozing over some intricate point in electri- 
cal science which was baffling him. 

"Halloo Tom?" cried the visitor cheerily, "what are you doing 
here this late? Aren't you going home?" 

"What time is it?" inquired Edison, sleepily rubbing his eyes 
and stretching like a lion suddenly aroused. 

"Midnight easy enough. Come along." 

"Is that so?" returned Edison in a dreamy sort of a way. 
"By George. I must go home, then. I was married to-ddiy." 

Marriage was an old story with him — he had been wedded to 
electrical hobbies for years. But,, in spite of his seeming indif- 
ference on "the most eventful day" in his life, he makes a good 
husband, and the pretty little woman of the perforating machine 
smilingly rules domestic destinies at Menlo Park, and proudly 
looks across the fields where chimneys rise and her husband still 
works on the problems that made him a truant on his wedding 
day. A swarm of children pluck her gown to share their mother's 
smile, and lay in wait to climb into their father's lap and muss 
his hair with as great a relish as if he were not the greatest 
genius of his time. The pet names of two of these little ones are 
"Dot" and "Dash," — after the characters in the Morse alphabet — 
and a third, only three months old, is called William Leslie. 
Dot's real name is Mary Estelle, and Dash's, Thomas Alva Edi- 
son, Jr. 




AND HIS INVENTIONS. 69 

In Menlo Park. 

In his arduous labors at Newark, Mr. Edison was subject to 
constant annoyance arising from the great tax upon his powers, 
curiosity seekers, etc., which finally causd him to dispose of his 
expensive machinery and seek a more retired spot, where he 
could quietly put into practical shape, his grand ideas connected 
with various mechanisms. He accordingly removed with his 
family, in 1876, to Menlo Park, a retired place, on the line of 
the New York & Philadelphia railroad, two miles north of 
Metuchin and twenty-four miles from New York. At this point 
Mr. Edison then erected and fitted up the most extensive labora- 
tory in the world. Mr. Reid in his Memorial Volume pronoun- 
ces it "one of the amplest laboratories and the finest array of 
assisting machinery to be found in connection with scientific 
inquiry. " 

Mr. Edison has very recently enlarged his facilities for his line 
of business by completing a workshop one hundred by thirty-five 
feet — about the same size of the old one — which is fitted 
up in the best possible manner with appropriate machinery. The 
engine in the new building is an eighty horse power, built by 
Charles Browne and Co., and said to be one of the finest and 
best made engines in the United States. The boiler is of the 
latest pattern, sectional, while the lathes, punches, drills, planers, 
milling machines, etc., are from the best makers. 

The experimental apparatus is the very finest and has been 
obtained by Mr. Edison at an expense of $[00,000,00. The 
facilities for ^^ getting out an invention' are far superior to any 
other laboratory in the world. It is not an uncommon thing for 
Mr. Edison to make an invention in the morning, and before 
night receive the working model for the same, from the hands of 
his chief assistant. It is in this stupendous and splendid labora- 
tory that the great professional inventor is. Snow at work, day 
and night, astonishing the civilized world by the character and 
number of his discoveries. The interior of this wonderful es- 



70 THOMAS A. EDISON 

tablishment is described in detail in an earlier chapter of this 
volume. 

In every well regulated institution of this character there are 
always a number of faithful co-workers who merit the highest 
commendations. Mr. Charles Batchelor, who is Mr. Edison's 
chief assistant, has been with him for the last nine years and 
has helped him to perfect all his inventions. He is a gentleman of 
superior ability and integrity. Under his supervision, Mr. Edison 
keeps eleven of the most skillful machinists and instrument 
makers to be found in the country — some of whom have been 
employed for years — and a corps of laboratory assistants. 

Professor Mclntyre, an accomplished scholar and noted 
chemist, with two assistants are kept constantly engaged on 
original research under Mr. Edison's own special direction. The 
inventor's extensive correspondence is attended to by Mr. L. S. 
Griffin, his private secretary, a hfe long friend and former tele- 
graph manager. He also attends to financial and confidential 
matters. William Carman is book-keeper, and Mr. John Kreuzi 
master machinist. To all of these faithful co-laborers Mr. 
Edison pays stated wages in the usual manner, except Mr. 
Batchelor, to whom he gives an interest in the inventions when 
perfected. 

The analysis of labor is so perfect that the whole establishment 
moves along like clock-work. Each workman is interested in 
the success ot every important invention and, it is said, daes not 
care so much for the exact hours of his labors, as is generally 
done in extensive manufactories. Edison is seen frequently 
among his men, genial and jovial, but moving through all as the 
grand master spirit, which he is. 




AND HIS INVENTIONS. 71 

Edison's Principal Inventions. 

Of the many inventions Mr. Edison has made, the following 
are the principal: 

Button Repeater. 

Gold and Stock Quotation Printer. 

Private Line Printer. 

Automatic Telegraph. 

Etheric Force, (a new discovery.) 

The Electric Pen and Press. 

Duplex Telegraph. 

Quadruplex Telegraph. 

The Domestic Telegraph System. 

The Electromotograph, (a new discovery.) 

The Acoustic Telegraph. 

The Carbon Speaking Telephone. 

The Phonograph, (a new discovery.) 

The Pressure Relay, (a new discovery.) 

The Megaphone. 

The Aerophone. 

Carbon Rheostat. 

Harmonic Engine. 

Multiplying copying Ink. 

Vocal Engine. 

The Tasimeter or "minute heat measurer." 

The Sonorous Voltameter. 

Subdivision, of the Electric Light. 

To this last Mr. Edison is now giving all his attention. It is an 
exceedingly difficult problem, comprising as it does the science 
of steam engineering, light, heat, electricity and magnetism. 
For the mathematical portion of this work he has lately en- 
gaged Mr. Francis Upton, a mathematician and electrician of 
ability who studied under Helmholtz of Berhn. 

A single invention is sometines covered by from fifteen to 



72 THOMAS A, EDISON 

twenty or more patents, the patent laws not allowing one patent 
to cover all the essential points. Edison's stock telegraph in- 
strument is secured by forty patents; his quadruplex telegraph 
by eleven ; and his automatic system of telegraphy by forty-six. 
Among the appliances of the electric light which will have to be 
secured before the light as an entirety can be made known to the 
public, are the improved dynamo machines, regulators, switches, 
coolers, etc., besides different portions of the light proper, and 
the various forms of conductors and lamps to meet the diversity 
in the want of consumers. This great invention, which so as- 
siduously engages Mr. Edison's attention at present, will probably 
require thirty or forty patents to fully protect it. 

Mr. Edison patents his inventions in Europe as well as in this 
country. The following story from him illustrates how quickly 
it may be done : 

I made a discovery at four o'clock in the afternoon. I got a 
wire from here (Menlo Park) to Plainfield, where my solicitor lives, 
and brought him into the telegraph office at that place. I wired 
him my discovery. He drew up the specifications on the spot, 
and about nine o'clock that night cabled an application for a 
patent to London. Before I was out of bed the next morning 
I received word from London that my application had been filed 
in the English patent office. The application was filed at noon, 
and I received my information about seven in the morning, five 
hours before the filing. The difference between London and 
New York time explains the thing. 

Foreigners, scientists, manufacturers and others who visit 
the extensive labratory and shops at Menlo Park, invaria- 
bly inquire," what is manufactured here?" and the reply is 
as invariably given, "nothing." Their surprise is complete upon 
ascertaining that it is a place for spending money rather than ma- 
king it, or to state it more properly, it is an experimental shop 
and labratory, and said to be the only establishment of the 
kind in the world. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 73 

The Quadruplex. 

A Wonderful Invention — Four Different Messages Sent at Same 

Time Over a Single Wire — How It 

Is Done. 

If we were writing a volume on science, under this caption we 
should give a page to the wonders of electricity. But this is not 
our aim and therefore the reader must simply accept it as a won- 
derful fact that by Edison's quadruplex system, four separate and 
distinct messages, two in each direction, may pass simultaneously 
over a single wire, Mr. Reid well remarks in his "Memorial 
Volume," that "the chief product of Mr. Edison's genius has 
been the quadruplex system of telegraphy, by which already 
the equivalent of fifty thousand miles of wire have been added 
to the capacity of the lines of the Western Union Telegraph 
Company." If Mr. Edison had perfected no other mechanism, 
this alone would rank him among the greatest of public bene- 
factors. 

It was duriug the summer of 1874, at Newark, N. J., while 
engaged in conjunction with Mr. Prescott, of New York, in ex- 
perimenting upon Stearns' duplex apparatus with a view of in- 
troducing certain modifications that Mr. Edison discovered the 
basis of the quadruplex system. 

The distinguishing feature of this method of telegraphy con- 
sists in combining at two terminal stations, two distinct and un- 
like methods of single transmission, in such a manner that they 
may be carried on independently upon the same wire, and at the 
same time, without interfering with each other. One of these 
methods of single transmission is known as the double current 
system, and the other is the single current or open circuit system. 

In the double current system the battery remains constantly 
in connection with the line at the sending stations, its polarity 
being completely reversed at the beginning, and at the end of 
every signal, without breaking the circuit. The receiving relay 
is provided with a polarized or permanently magnetic armature, 
but has no adjusting spring, and its action depends solely upon 



74 



THOMAS A. EDISON 



the reversal or polarity upon the line, without reference to the 
strength of the current. 

In the single current system, the transmission is effected by 
increasing and decreasing the current, while the relay may have 
a neutral soft iron armature, provided with a retracting spring. 
A more desirable form, however, for long circuits, is that of 
the polarized relay, especially adopted to prevent interferences 
from the reversals sent into the line to operate the double 
current system. The action, therefore in this system, depends 
solely upon the strength of the current, its polarity being a 
matter of indifference. 

By making use of these two methods, viz., polarity and strength, 
combined with the duplex principle of simultaneous transmission 
in opposite directions, four sets of instruments may be operated 
at the same time, on the same wire. 




|ll»l'P-||.I.|.l.l.l.I.I.P 



H'1'H'I'H'1»-H'H' 



The Quadruplex. D T, Double Transmitter; S T, Second or Single Transmitter; P, Polar- 
ized Relay; C R, Common Relay; C, Condenser; G, Ground, x and 3 Batteries. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 



n 




Phonograph in Operation. 

The Phonograph. 

The Edison and Faber "Talking Machines" — Phonograph Fully 

Explained — Its Fidelity in Re-producing Sound — 

What We May Expect From It. 

No invention in the world's history has engendered more curi- 
osity than the Phonograph. And yet of all, it may be considered 
among the most simple as well as singular. Efforts were made 
long ago to produce a "talking machine, " but they were attended 
with no great degree of success. The organs of speech were 
well imitated by excellent mechanisms and vibrations were pro- 
duced which gave out a sound similar to the human voice, but it 
was after all only a species of the pipe organ, and too compli- 
cated and expensive to be of any practical value. By an entirely 
different principle, in which the vibrations of the voice are com- 
municated at once upon a metalic surface, becoming thereby 



76 THOMAS A. EDISON 

fixed, as so many indentations representing exactly the words spo- 
ken, Mr. Edison has developed a simple mechanism that repro- 
duces with wonderful exactness the human voice in all its possible 
variations. 

Professor Faber, in developing his machine, worked at the 
source of articulate sounds, and built up an artificial organ of 
speech, whose parts, as nearly as possible, perform the same 
functions as corresponding organs in our vocal apparatus. A vi- 
brating ivory reed, of variable pitch, forms its vocal chords. 
There is an oral cavity whose size and shape can be rapidly 
changed by depressing the keys on a key-board. A rubber 
tongue and lips make the consonants; a little windmill, turning 
in its throat, rolls the letter r, and a tube is attached to its nose 
when it speaks French. This is the anatomy of Faber's won- 
derful piece of mechanism. 

Faber attacked the problem on its physiological side. Quite 
differently works Mr. Edison : he attacks the problem, not at 
the source of origin of the vibrations which make articulate 
speech : but considering these vibrations as already made, it 
matters not how, he makes these vibrations impress themselves 
on a sheet of metallic foil, and then reproduces from these im- 
pressions the sonorous vibrations which made them. 

Faber solved the problem by reproducing the mechanical 
causes of the vibrations making voice and speech; Edison 
solved it by taking the mechanical effects of these vibrations. 
Faber reproduced the movements of our vocal organs; Edison 
reproduced the motions which the drum-skin of the ear has 
when this organ is acted on by the vibrations caused by the 
movements of the vocal organs. 

The simplicity of Mr. Edison's mechanism and its fidelity in 
reproducing sound, enthrone the phonograph as king in the realm 
of wonderful inventions. Geo. B. Prescott, a friend of Mr. Edi- 
son, and electrician of the Western Union Telegraph Company 
at New York says that "certainly, within a dozen years, some 
of the great singers will be induced to sing into the ear of the 
phonograph, and the stereotyped cylinders thence obtained will 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 77 

be put into the hand organs of the streets, and we shall hear the 
actual voice of Christine Nilsson or Miss Gary ground out at 
every corner. In public exhibitions, also, we shall have re- 
productions of the sounds of nature, and of noises famihar and 
unfamiliar. Nothing will be easier than to catch the sounds of 
the waves on the beach, the roar of Niagara, the discords of 
the street, the voice of animals, the puffing and rush of the rail- 
road, the rolling thunder, or even the tumult of a battle. " 

"In its simplest form, the speaking phonograph" says Mr. 
Prescott, "consists of a mounted diaphragm, so arranged as to 
operate a small steel stylus or needle point, placed just below 
and opposite its center, and a brass cylinder, six or more 
inches long by three or four in diameter, which is mounted 
on a horizontal axis extending each way beyond its ends for a 
distance about equal to its own length. A spiral groove is cut 
in the circumference of the cylinder, from one end to the other, 
each spiral of the groove being separated from its neighbor by 
about one-tenth of an inch. The shaft or axis is also cut by a 
screw thread corresponding to the spiral groove of the cylinder, 
and works in screw bearings, consequently when the cylinder is 
caused to revolve, by means of a crank that is fitted to the axis 
for this purpose, it receives a forward or backward movement of 
about one-tenth of an inch for every turn of the same, the di- 
rection, of course, depending upon the way the crank is turned. 
The diaphragm is supported by an upright casting capable of ad- 
justment, and so arranged that it may be removed altogether 
when necessary. When in use, however, it is clamped in a fixed 
position above or in front of the cylinder, thus bringing the 
stylus always opposite the groove as the cylinder is turned. A 
small, flat spring attached to the casting extends underneath the 
diaphragm as far as its center and carries the stylus, and between 
the diaphragm and spring a small piece of india rubber is placed 
to modify the action, it having been found that better results are 
obtained by this means than when the stylus is rigidly attached 
to the diaphragm itself. 

The action of the apparatus will now be readily understood 



f8 THOMAS A. EDISON 

from what follows. The cylinder is first very smoothly covered 
with tin-foil, and the diaphragm securely fastened in place by 
clamping its support to the base of the instrument. When this 
has been properly done, the stylus should lightly press against 
that part of the foil over the groove. The crank is now turned, 
while, at the same time, some one speaks into the mouth-piece 
of the instrument, which will cause the diaphragm to vibrate, 
and as the vibrations of the latter correspond with the move- 
ments of the air producing them, the soft and yielding foil will 



The Phonograph, 

become marked along the line of the groove by a series of in- 
dentations of different depths, varying with the amplitude of the 
vibrations of the diaphragm; or, in other words, with the in- 
flections or modulations of the speaker's voice. These inflec- 
tions may therefore be looked upon as a sort of visible speech, 
which, in fact, they really are. If now the diaphragm is re- 
moved, by loosening the clamp, and the cylinder then turned 
back to the starting point, we have only to replace the dia- 
phragm and turn in the same direction as at first, to hear re- 
peated all that has been spoken into the mouth-piece of the 
apparatus; the stylus, by this means, being caused to traverse 
its former path, and consequently, rising and falling with the de- 
pressions in the foil, its motion is communicated to the dia- 
phragm, and thence through the intervening air to the ear, where 
the sensation of sound is produced. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 79 

As the faithful reproduction of a sound is in reality nothing 
more than a reproduction of similar aucoustic vibrations in a 
given time, it at once becomes evident that the cylinder should 
be made to revolve with absolute uniformity at all times, other- 
wise a difference more or less marked between the original sound 
-^nd the reproduction will become manifest. To secure this uni- 
formity of motion, and produce a practically working machine 
for recording speeches, vocal and instrumental music, and per- 
fectly reproducing the same, the inventor has devised an appa- 
ratus in which a plate replaces the cylinder. This plate which is 
ten inches in diameter, has a volute spiral groove cut in its sur- 
face on both sides from its center to within one inch of its outer 
edge; an arm guided by the spiral upon the under side of the 
plate carries a diaphragm and mouthpiece at its extreme end. 
If the arm be placed near the center of the plate and the latter 
rotated, the motion will cause the arm to follow the spiral out- 
ward to the edge. A spring and train of wheel-work regulated 
by a friction governor serves to give uniform motion to the plate. 
The sheet upon which the record is made is of tin-foil. This 
is fastened to a paper frame, made by cutting a nine-inch disk 
from a square piece of paper of the same dimensions as the 
plate. Four pins upon the plate pass through corresponding 
eyelet-holes punched in the four corners of the paper, when the 
latter is laid upon it, and thus secure accurate registration while 
a clamping-frame hinged to the plate, fastens the foil and its 
paper frame securely to the latter. The mechanism is so ar- 
ranged that the plate may be started and stopped instantly or its 
motion reversed at will, thus giving the greatest convenience to 
both speaker and copyist. 

The sheet of tin-foil or other plastic material receiving the 
impressions of sound, may be stereotyped or electrotyped so as 
to be multiplied and made durable; or the cylinder may be made 
of material plastic when used, and hardening afterward. Thin 
sheets oi papier mache, or of various substances which soften by 
heat would be of this character. Having provided thus for the 
durability of the phonograph plate, it will be very easy to make 



8o THOMAS A, EDISON 

it separable from the cylinder producing it, and attaching it to a 
corresponding cylinder anywhere and at any time. There will 
doubtless be a standard of diameter and pitch of screw for pho- 
nograph cylinders. Friends at a distance will then send to each 
other phonograph letters, which will talk at any time in the 
friend's voice when put upon the instrument. How startling 
also it will be to reproduce and hear at pleasure the voice of the 
dead ! All of these things are to be common, every-day expe- 
riences within a few years. 



Possibilities of the Phonograph. 

A Short Hand Reporter — Elocutionist — Opera Singer — Teacher 
OF Languages — Its Medical Possibilities. 

In speaking of the various purposes for which the phonograph 
may be utilized, Mr. Edison says : 

^ First, — For dictating it will take the place of short-hand re- 
porters, as thus : A man who has many letters to write will talk 
them to the phonograph, and send the sheets directly to his cor- 
respondents, who will lay them on the phonograph and hear what 
they have to say. Such letters as go to people who have no 
phonographs will be copied from the machine by the office boy. 

^Second. — For reading. A first-class elocutionist will read 
one of Dickens* novels into the phonograph. It can all be 
printed on a sheet ten inches square, and these can be multi- 
plied by the million copies by a cheap process of electrotyping. 
These sheets will be sold for, say, twenty-five cents. A man is 
tired, and his wife's eyes are failing, and so they sit around and 
hear the phonograph read from this sheet the whole novel with all 
the expression of a first-class reader. See? A company for 
printing these is already organized in New York. 

" Third. — It will sing in the very voice of Patti and Kellogg, 
so that every family can have an opera any evening. 

^Fourth. — It may be used as a musical composer. When 
singing some favorite airs backward it hits some lovely airs, and 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 8i 

I believe a musician could get one popular melody every day 
by experimenting in that way. 

"Fifth. — It may be used to read to inmates of blind asylums, 
or to the ignorant, who have never learned to read. 

"Sixth. — It may be used to teach languages, and I have al- 
ready sold the right to use it to teach children the alphabet. 
Suppose Stanley had had one and thus obtained for the world 
all the dialects of Central Africa! 

"Seventh. — It will be used to make toys talk. A company 
has already organized to make speaking dolls. They will speak 
in a little girl's voice and will never lose the gift any more than 
a little girl. 

"Eighth. — It will be used by actors to learn the right readings 
of passages. In fact, its utility will be endless. " 

A leading medical journal asserts that the phonograph opens 
up a vista of medical possibilities delightful to contemplate: 
Who can fail to make the nice distinctions between every form 
of bronchial and pulmonary rale, percussion, succussion, and 
friction sounds, surgical crepitus, faetal and placental murmurs, 
and arterial and aneurismal bruit, when each can be produced at 
will, amplified to any desired extent, in the study, the ampi- 
theatre, the office, and the hospital ? The lecturer of the future 
will teach more effectively with this instrument than by the 
mouth. The phonograph will record the frequency and charc- 
teristics of respiratory and muscular movements, decide as to 
the age and sex of the faetus in utero, and differentiate pneu- 
monia from phthisis. It will reproduce the sob of hysteria, the 
sigh of melancholia, the singultus of collapse, the cry of the 
puerperal women in the different stages of labor. It will inter- 
pret for the speechless infant, the moans and cries of tubercular 
meningitis, ear-ache, and intestinal colic. It will furnish the 
ring of whooping-cough and the hack of the consumptive. It 
will be an expert in insanity, distinguishing between the laugh 
of the maniac and the drivel of the idiot. It will classify dys- 
phasic derangements, such as ataxic, amnesic, paraphasic and 

ataphasic aphasia. 
6 



82 THOMAS A, EDISON 

It will recount, in the voice and words of the patient, the ago- 
nies of neuralgia and renal calculus, and the horrors of delirium 
tremens. It will give the burden of the story of the old lady 
who recounts all the ills of her ancestors before proceeding to 
the era of her own. More than this, it will accomplish this feat 
in the ante-room, while the physician is supposed to be busying 
himself with his last patient. 

Last, but not least, it will simultaneously furnish to the med- 
ical philosopher the grateful praises and promises of him who is 
convalescent from dangerous illness, together with the chilling 
accents, in which, later, the doctor is told that he must wait for 
his remuneration till the butcher and the baker have been paid. 



The Phonograph's Arrival '*Out West." 

It Visits Chicago — Is Interviewed by a Reporter — A Modern 
Miracle — How It Talked— What It Had To Say. 

While the phonograph is a great traveler, and has already vis- 
ited most of the civilized world, conversing with kings and 
queens, and attending great expositions, etc., yet its trip out 
West will always remain among the most remarkable of its ear- 
liest adventures. Wherever exhibited, it proved an object of the 
greatest interest. Its arrival in Chicago was heralded as the 
"Modern Miracle," and the whole occasion is described by an 
intelligent spectator as follows : 

The phonograph has come. It was interviewed this morning. 
The creature was found screwed up in a box and manifested no 
unruly tendencies. It does not stand on its hind legs at the 
sight of visitors, and is apparently perfectly safe for children to 
approach and even handle, but there is no denying that it does 
perform some most remarkable capers. At these the Western pub- 
lic will soon be accorded the privilege of wondering with open- 
mouthed amazement. The instrument, or instruments — for 
there are three of them — are in the possession of Mr. Geo. H. 
Bliss, General Manager of the Western Electric Manufacturing 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. %z 

Company, a friend of Edison, the inventor, who has been awarded 
the privilege of exhibiting the modern miracle in Illinois. They 
arrived yesterday afternoon, and were enclosed in an apartment 
of the Methodist Church Block, from which it was deemed prob- 
able that they would be unable to effect an escape. Th^y are the 
very first of their genus that have ever been brought to this part 
of the country, and, of course, their keeper is very careful of 
them. 

This morning, when the cover was carefully removed from the 
box, the reporter drew near and cautiously looked in, but imme- 
diately started back, expecting the thing to jump. 
"Don't be afraid," said Mr. BHss; "it won't bite." 
Whereupon Mr. Chase, a friend of Mr. Bliss, and the reporter 
were sufficiently re-assured to allow Mr. Bliss to remove the ma- 
chine from its lair, and place it on the table. An inspection of 
it, conducted with increasing boldness, as it was observed to be 
entirely harmless, served to show that it consisted of an iron 
cylinder, about five inches in diameter and six in length, into 
which was cut an ordinary screw-thread, running from end to 
end. This cylinder was swung on an axle, projecting at each 
end about the length of the cylinder, and also circled by a screw 
thread corresponding to that on the cylinder. To the end of 
the axle was attached a small crank, by means of which the cyl- 
inder could be revolved, so as to work end-for-end on the axle- 
supports. The mouth-piece is a small round disk of thin tin, 
having a concave surface calculated to catch the sound, sup- 
ported by a moveable rest, so that it can be swung close to or 
away from the cylinder. Fixed to the under side of this mouth- 
piece, by means of cement, is a minute chisel-shaped needle 
which, when the rest is brought close to the cylinder, would im- 
pinge into the screw-thread thereon. This was the simple con- 
trivance. Now in order to make it speak, all that was necessary 
was to wind the cylinder with a piece of smooth tin foil, fasten- 
ing the ends c^ the sheet with cement. The crank is then 
turned so that the cylinder is run clear to one end of the frame, 
and the mouth-piece is brought close to the cylinder, the little 



84 THOMAS A. EDISON 

needle being very nicely adjusted against the tin foil. Then, as 
the words are spoken into the mouth-piece, the cylinder is 
slowly revolved; the plate to which the needle is attached vi- 
brates to correspond with the voices and the needle gently in- 
dents the tin foil, striking each indentation into the groove of 
the screw so that it is clear cut and visible, though very small. 
The speaking having been concluded, the mouth-piece is swung 
away, and the cylinder is screwed back to where it began. A 
large tin funnel is then attached to the mouth-piece, which is 
swung back to the cylinder. This funnel is designed to garner 
and send out the sounds as they come from the instrument; the 
crank is turned, and, as the cylinder moves back over its former 
course, the little needle strikes into the indentations first made, 
thus vibrating the tin plate of the mouth-piece precisely as it 
was vibrated by the voice and — lo and behold, the creature 
speaks ! That is all there is to it. Its voice is a little metalHc, 
but a listener can recognize a friend's eccentricity of speech. 
The instrument receives a tenor or treble voice much more 
readily than a bass. Last evening the instrument, interviewed 
this morning, was put into operation in the auditorium of the 
First Methodist Church. 

" Hurrah for Grant ! " screamed Mr. Bliss, forgetful of the an- 
tiquity of that sentiment. 

"Hurrah for Grant!" returned the instrument: but somebody 
had laughed at Mr. Bliss' patriotic exclamation. So the machine 
laughed while getting out the sentence, in such a manner as 
would not have sounded really flattering to the ex-President. 

It repeated with the real spirit and twang such expressions as 
"What d'ye soye?" "Does yer mother know yer out?" and num- 
berless other Americanisms, and, at length, after the company 
had been speaking very loud, under the impression that the 
thing had to be very emphatically addressed, the little daughter 
of the sexton of the church was brought into requisition. As 
it happened, she was bashful and could only be gotten to speak 
very low. But she repeated "Mary Had a Little Lamb," and 
presently the instrument ground out the familiar lines. The 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 85 

poem being encored, Mr. Bliss' Clerk essayed to say it, but the 
man at the crank turned the cylinder with increasing speed, so 
that when the verses were returned, the tones went scaling up 
in rapidly ascending pitch, until at last, like Elaine's wailings, 
it "scaled high on the last line" — awful high. In the frequent 
repetitions of this idyl, it was not observed that the instrument 
ever once attempted any of the numerous parodies which have 
been perpetrated, but every time adhered to the true words and 
meter, from which it may be inferred that it will be a truthful 
recorder. 



Phonographic Records under the Microscope. 

How THE Letters Look — BelIeved by Edison to be Legible— 
The Deepest Indentations Made by Consonants. 

Microscopic examination of the indentations made in the tin foil 
by the phonograph when spoken to, shows that each letter has a 
definite form, though there is a great variation, resulting from 
the intensity and difference of voice. Long E (or ay) on the 
tin foil looks like two Indian clubs with the handles together. 
The same general resemblance is observed in E short except that 
as in A short, the volume of sound being less, the intensity is 
less, or (what is the measure of intensity) the path of the needle- 
point is shorter, and it seldom entirely clears the foil, the conse- 
quence being a continuous groove of irregular, but normally' ir- 
regular width. 

I long and I short are much alike in general form, as also are 
O long and O short, the coupling of the pairs of the latter being 
the most striking feature. U long and U short best show the 
difference in shape produced by less intensities, the short 
being drawn out, and more acicular. 

01 is very interesting. The dipthong consists of short O and 
short I, and the very molds which characterize their sounds are 
to be observed. 

OW presents a composite character, but its derivation has not 



S6 THOMAS A. EDISON 

yet been made out. Evidently each letter has a definite form. 

It has been a question of serious consideration and one of great 
importance with Mr. Edison whether the indentations in the 
tin foil could be read with the eye. Want of time has kept 
him from making extensive experiments, but he is of the opinion 
that careful study will enable experts to decipher the characters. 
Profs. Fleming Jenkin and M. Ewing, of the University of Glas- 
gow, Scotland, have spent much time in examining the phono- 
graphic records, and have been partially successful in their 
attempts to read them. The method employed by the Pro- 
fessors was to repeat each of the vowel and consonant sounds 
a number of times, and then examine the record to determine 
if the indentation had any regular or characteristic shapes which 
would serve to identify the sounds. The result shows that the 
record of any single sound repeated is very irregular — one series 
of indentation differing widely from another. It was claimed, 
however, that despite this irregularity the record of any one 
sound could be distinguished from that of another sound. 

Mr. Edison has repeated some of the experiments made by 
Profs. Jenkin and Ewing. Knowing beforehand what sounds 
had produced the records, he could tell the sounds by the inden- 
tations and also count the number of times a sound had been 
repeated. He found it impossible, however, to recognize similar 
sounds which had been repeated to the phonograph by another 
person. The shapes of the indentations were found by experi- 
ments to differ for the same sound, according to the speed with 
which the cylinder of the phonograph was turned, the force with 
which the sound was uttered, and the distance of the mouth from 
the diaphragm. Even by placing his hand against his cheek 
while repeating the sound, Mr. Edison says he can change the 
shape of the phonetic characters. The depest indentations are 
made by consonant sounds, on account of the explosive force 
with which these sounds are uttered. Words beginning with P 
can be recognized more easily than any others by the deep in- 
dentations which begin the records. One difficulty in recog- 
nizing records of words is found in the length of these records. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 87 

The clearness of the phonograph's articulation, Mr. Edison 
says, depends considerable upon the size and shape of the open- 
ing in the mouth-piece. When words are spoken against the 
whole diaphragm, the hissing sounds, as in shall, fleece, etc., are 
lost. These sounds are rendered clearly, when the hole is small 
and provided with sharp edges, or when made in the form of a 
slot surrounded by artificial teeth. 

Besides tinfoil, other metals have been used. Impressions 
have been made upon sheets of copper, and even upon soft 
iron. With the copper foil the instrument spoke with sufficient 
force to be heard at a distance of two hundred and seventy-five 
feet in the open air. 



^ft ' <1I]J) 


<Ill!>«I!li 


^^ ffi> 






1 <m 

1^ 


<I1IIIID<# 





Phonographic Records under the Microscope. 

In the above engraving, the dotted line A, represents the ap- 
• pearance to the eye of the impressions made on the foil when 
the sound of a in bat is sung against the iron plate of the phono- 
graph. 

B, is a magnified profile of these impressions on smoked glass 
obtained by using a form of pantagraph. 

C, gives the appearance of Konig's flame when the same 
sound is sung quite close to its membrane. 

It will be seen that the profile of the impressions made on 
the phonograph, and the contours of the flames of Konig, when 
vibrated by the same compound sound bear a close resemblance. 



88 THOMAS A. EDISON 

The Phonograph Supreme at Home. 

A Western journal jocosely remarks that the phonograph will 
be a source of comfort and consolation to long suftering wives 
whose husbands are in the habit of staying out late at night and 
returning in the small hours to wrestle with the key-hole, and 
eventually go to bed with their boots on. To get even with 
these wretches, the poor woman has to sit up and await their 
coming in order to more effectually free her mind. Having her 
phonograph, she can speak a vigorous lecture into it, and, fixing 
the clock-work so that it will go ofif at the time she knows he 
will return, she can compose herself to sleep, confident that her 
representative will do her work with the necessary vigor and em- 
phasis, and that the victim will have to endure it. He may raise 
the window and pitch the phonograph into the street, but the 
machine will none the less have its say out, and in this case will 
have the immediate neighbors for listeners. For the curtain lec- 
ture business the phonograph will be of great advantage, as it 
can be set to go off at any specified time, like an alarm clock. 
A woman specially gifted in invective and sarcasm, and having a 
good flow of speech, could do a thriving business by supplying 
plates to those of her sex less gifted in the science of combing 
down recreant spouses and reducing them to a state of pliability 
and won't-do-so-any-more. Many family jars might be pleasant- 
ly adjusted by the phonograph. The husband and wife could 
scold it out into their instruments, and leave them on the bureau 
for the housemaid to take out into the back-yard, where they 
could splutter at each other without doing any harm. Right at 
this point, however, there is a startling possibility. Mr. Edison's 
serophone is only a colossal telephone that conveys sound for 
ten miles. The alarming capabilities of such an instrument are 
apparent when the reader contemplates an irate woman, whose 
husband is out later than he ought to be, in possession of a voice 
ten miles long and as big as a small clap of thunder. The clock 
strikes twelve, one, two; the whole city is wrapped in silence, 
when suddenly a voice cries through the startled air, awakening 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 89 

every one from sleep, "John Henry Jones, you come home right 
off, or you'll catch it." Such developments of the domestic 
discipline are among the alarming possibilities of Mr. Edison's 
inventions. 



**Uncle Remus" and the Phonograph. 

"Unc. Remus," asked a tall, awkward looking negro who 
was one of a crowd surrounding the old man in front of James' 
Bank, "Wat's dis 'ere wat dey calls de fongraf — dis 'ere inst'u- 
ment wa't kin holler 'roun like little chillum in de back yard?" 

"I ain't seed um," said Uncle Remus, feeling in his pocket 
for a fresh chew of tobacco. "I ain't seed um, but I hear talk 
on um. Miss Sally wuz a readin' in de papers las' Chuesday, an' 
she say dat it's a mighty big whatyoumaycallem. " 

"A mighty big which?" asked one of the crowd. 

"A mighty big whatshisname, " answered Uncle Remus. "I 
wuzzent up dar close to whar Miss Sa'ah was reedin'but I kinder 
geddered it in dat it wuz one er dese 'ere whathisnamzes w'at 
holler inter one year an' it come's out at de odder. Hit's mighty 
funny unto me how dese folks kin go an' prognosticate dere 
ekoes intu one er dese yer i'on boxes, an' dar hit' 11 stay ontwell 
de man comes 'long an' turns de handle an' lets de fuss come 
piHn' out. Bimeby dey'll get ter makin' shore-nuff people, an' 
den dere'U be a racket 'roun here. — Dey tells me dat it goes off 
like one er dese 'ere torpedoes. " 

"You hear dat, don't you?" said said one or two of the 
younger negroes* 

"Dat's w'at dey tells me," continued Uncle Remus. — "Dat's 
w'at dey sez. Hit's one er dese yer kinder w'atsiznames dat 
sasses back when you hollers at it" 

"W'at dey fix um up for den?" asked one of the practical 
negroes. 

"Dat's w'at I want er know," said Uncle Remus contempla- 
tively. "But dat's w'at Miss Sally was reedin' in de paper. All 



i 



90 THOMAS A. EDISON 

you gotter do is holler at de box, an' dar's no remarks. Dey 
goes in, an' dar dey are tooken, an' dar dey hangs on twell you 
shake de box, an' den dey drops out des er dese yere fishes w'at 
you git from Savannah, an' you ain't got time fer ter look at dere 
gills needer. " 



Moses and the Toddygraph. 

"Officer Warlow bring up Moses in the bulrushes," said Jus- 
tice Bixby. 

The officer brought up a seed-cucumbery looking individual, 
and placed him at the railing. 

"The officer found you last night," said the Judge, lying in 
the bullrushes round the Union Square fountain, dead drunk. 
What have you to sav?" 

Well, Judge, I'll tell you how it was, " said the prisoner, I'm 
an inventor. " 

"Of what?" asked his honor. 

"Of the toddygraph." 

"What's that?" 

"Why, you wind a cylinder with tinfoil," said the prisoner, 
"and drop into a liquor-saloon and take a drink. You have the 
cylinder under your coat, and when the bar-keeper ain't looking 
you breathe on the tinfoil; when you get out you turn a crank, 
and repeat the drink as often as you please. " 

"A very dangerous invention," said his honor. 

"By no means," said the prisoner, "for it ruins the landlord's 
business. One drink will last a week. " 

"Yes," said his Honor, "but it kills the imbiber." 

"But if there were no landlords there would be no imbibers, " 
said the prisoner. 

"That may be so; but what has all this to do with your being 
found drunk in a public park?" 

"I'll tell you. Last night I was testing a new machine, and 
I think — I won't be positive — ^but I think I turned the crank 
just once too often" 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 91 

"Very well," said his Honor, "I will send you up for ten 
days. " As you tarry in classic Blackwell, I advise you to turn 
your inventive genius to something more useful. Invent a din- 
nergraph, for instance, so that a poor man can repeat a square 
meal often. MiUions yet unborn will bless you, and your name 
will go down to posterity along with Peter Cooper and Florence 
Nightingale. " 



How the ''Phonograph Man" is said to Amuse 

Himself. 

A Cincinnati gentleman is responsible for the following: 

Edison, the phonograph man, is wretched unless he invents 
half a dozen things every day. He does it just for amusement 
when regular business isn't pressing. The other day he went 
out for a little stroll and he thought out a plan for walking on 
one leg so as to rest the other, before he had gone a square. 

He hailed a milk-wagon and told the driver of a little inven- 
tion that had popped through his head just that moment for 
delivering milk without getting out of his wagon or even stopping 
his horses. A simple force-pump, with hose attached, worked 
by the foot, would do the business. Milk-men who dislike to 
halt for anything in their mad career, because it prevents them 
running over as many children as they might otherwise do, 
would appreciate this improvement. Edison isn't sure but that 
sausage and pig's feet could be delivered in the same way. 

He stepped into a hotel office, and, observing the humiliations 
which guests encountered in seeking to obtain information from 
the high-toned clerk, he sat down in the reading-room, and in 
five minutes had invented a hotel clerk to work by machinery, 
warranted to stand behind the counter any length of time de- 
sired, and answer all questions with promptness, correctness, 
and suavity — diamond pin, and hair parted in the middle, if 
desired. 

Lounging into the billiard-room, he was struck with the need- 



92 THOMAS A. EDISON 

less amout of cushions required to each table. Quick as lightning 
he thought of a better and more economical plan — cushion the 
balls ! He immediately pulled out a postal card and wrote to 
Washington applying for a patent. 

When Edison started to go out he had to pass the barber-shop 

of the hotel, and, as he did so, he sighed to think that, with all 

his genius and creative imagination, he could never hope to 

' equal the knight of the razor as a talking machine. This saddened 

him so that he went home and invented no more that day. 



Ho^v the Phonograph Frightened a Preacher. 

One of the most amusing anecdotes in relation to Mr. Edison 
and the phonograph is told in connection with a well known 
divine who was very skeptical concerning the capabilities of the 
wonderful instrument and who, it seems, had a vague suspicion 
that either Mr. Edison or some one of his assistants, was palm- 
ing off some first class ventiiloquism under the assumed name of 
the marvelous. Such a remarkable case as this one was likely 
to be, Mr. Edison thought demanded special attention and so a 
plate of tin foil was properly doctorfed for the divine, to suit the 
emergency. 

Sure enough his incredulity was manifested at the proper time. 
He wanted to talk into the mouthpiece himself and see if his 
own words would be recorded and repeated. So down he sat 
and gravely repeated a verse of scripture to the phonograph. — 
The readjusment was made and to his utter astonishment it 
came back from the instrument as follows: ' 

He that cometh from above is above all; (who are you, 
anyhow?) he that is of the earth (Oh, pshaw, give us a rest,) is 
earthly, and speaketh of the (Look here, you can't preach, go 
home) earth, etc. The startled divine was lost in amazement, 
but repeated experiments convinced him that the phonograph 
was all right. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 93 

How the Phonograph was Discovered by Mr. Edison. 

The phonograph was discovered— to use Mr. Edison's lan- 
guage — "by the merest accident." "I was singing," says he, "to 
the mouthpiece of a telephone, when the vibrations of the wire 
sent the fine steel point into my finger. That set me to thinking. 
If I could record the actions of the point, and then send the 
point over the same surface afterwards, I saw no reason why the 
thing would not talk. 

I tried the experiment, first on a strip of telegraph paper, and 
found that the point made an alphabet, I shouted the word 
"Halloo! Halloo!" into the mouthpiece, ran thepaper back over 
the steel point and heard a faint Halloo! Halloo! in return! I 
determined to make a machine that would work accurately, and 
gave my assistants instructions, teUing them what I had dis- 
covered. 

They laughed at me. I bet fifteen ' cigars with one of my 
assistants, Mr. Adams, that the thing would work the first time 
without a break, and won them. That's the whole story. The 
discovery came through the pricking of a finger. " 

Mr. Edison related this story of the phonograph's origin to a 
company of interested listeners at Menlo Park, as given above, 
and then turning to the instrument he shouted out in the mouth- 
piece : 

'* Nineteen years in the Bastile 1 
I scratched a name upon the wall, 

And that name was Robert Landry. 
Parlez vous Francais ? Si habla Espanol, 

Sprechen sie Deutsch ?" 

And the words) were repeated, followed by the air of "Old Uncle 
Ned, " which he had sung. 



94 THOMAS A. EDISON 

Edison Joking with the Phonograph. 

The matrix, after having been used to record one conversa- 
tion or poem as the case may be, will also admit of another 
being superinduced, but they will, of course, be reported in a 
very jumbling manner. In this way Mr. Edison and his assist- 
ants frequently created much amusement for the listeners. 

On one occasion the affecting words of the first verse of "Bin- 
gen on the Rhine" were made by the phonograph to be reported 
as follows: 

A soldier of the legion lay dying in algiers, 

"Oh, shut up!" "Oh, bag your head!" 

There was lack of woman's nursing, there was 

"Oh, give us a rest!" 

lack of woman's tears. 

-^ "Dryup!,, 

But a comrade stood beside him while his life 
"Oh, what are you giving us !" "Oh, 

blood ebbed away, 

cheese it!" 
And bent with pitying glances to hear what he 
"Oh, you can't read poetry!" "Let 

might say. 

up!" 
The dying soldier faltered, and he took that com 
. "Police! Police!" "Po- 

rade's hand, 

lice!" 
And he said, "I shall never see my own, my 
"Oh, put him out!" "Oh cork 

native land. " 

yourself!" 
It is impossible to describe the ludicrousness of the effect. Mr. 
Edison himself laughed like a boy. 



AA'D HIS INVENTIONS, 
Edison's Electric Pen. 



95 



Mr. Edison has taught the hghtning to write in more ways 
than by chemistry. Perhaps his most simple, and still very ingen- 
ious, method is by means of the electric pen, over sixty thousand 
of which are now in use throughout the country. The electrici- 
ty in this case causes a perforating needle point to move up 
and down within a pencil shaped holder at very great rapidity. 
This holder is manipulated the same as if it were a pen or pen- 
cil, and as it moves rapidly over the surface of the paper the 
needle point, by its intensely rapid movement perforates the pa- 




Edison's Electric Pen. 
per sufficiently to produce a perfect stencil of what has been writ- 
ten. — When the electric writing is completed, the sheet of paper 
is put into a duplicating press and copies made therefrom in any 
numbers required. The perforations are so numerous and so 
nearly together, that when the ink is pressed through them upon 
the surface of the duplicate sheet, they seem to form a contin- 
uous line making the writing easily legible, provided of course, 
the electric instrument which makes the stencil is guided by a 
good penman. The battery, line, pen, and working principle 
of this novel invention are shown in the engraving here given. 



96 THOMAS A. EDISON 

The Electro-Motograph. 

A Curious Instrument — How It Works — Four Hundred Moves in 

One Second ! 

Among the most singular of Mr. Edison's discoveries is the 
fact that certain chemical salts lose their functional properties 
when subjected to the action of an electric current. On this 
as a basis of action he has devised a telegraphic system in which 
the ordinary relay magnet is wholly unnecessary. This he called 
the Electro-motograph. In the language of Mr. Prescott, "it 
was the substitution of friction aud ante friction for the presence 
of magnetism in the relay. It was remarkable also, in that it 
could be worked by an almost infinitessimal current. " Its ra- 
pidity of action is more than ten-fold greater than any magnet 
hitherto constructed, which renders it the only known apparatus 
that can repeat or translate, from one circuit to another, the 
signals of high speed telegraph systems. 

The working principle of the instrument is explained as fol- 
lows : A drum, rotated by clock work, carries slowly forward a 
slip of paper moistened with a solution of potassic hydrate. — 
Immediately over this drum is a circuit closing lever which 
moves freely upward and sideways. Upon the extreme end of 
the lever is a screw having a lead point, which is held firmly 
against the surface of the chemical paper by the tension of a 
spring. Near the end of the lever is a platina pointed extension 
projecting upwards, its extreme end playing between a limiting 
screw and a platina-pointing screw opposite. The local connec- 
tions, or second line wire are made in the usual manner. There 
is also a sounder and a local battery. The zinc pole of the main 
battery is connected with the lead point screw, while the other 
pole is connected through the key to the drum. The action 
is as follows : The pressure with which the lead point is held 
upon the chemical paper causes great friction and locks the point, 
as it were, to the paper, and the rotating drum carries the lever 
forward to the limiting screw, the local circuit and main line 
being broken. If one or two turns only be given the spring 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 97 

which draws the lever back, the friction will still be sufficient to 
detain the lever in contact with the drum, but the moment the 
key is closed, the passage of the current produces an unknown 
and peculiar action upon the lead point and chemical paper, and 
the almost total annihilation of the normal friction, when, of 
course, the spring draws the lever back and closes the local cir- 
cuit or second main line as the case may be, and continues 
there as long as the current passes; but when the current is 
broken by the key the normal friction returns instantaneously , 
and the continuously moving drum and paper carries the lever 
forward again to the limiting screw, or stop, breaking the sec- 
ondary circuit. 

The genius of the instrument is in the chemical paper, which 
in some strange manner loses its frictional properties when sub- 
jected to a current of electricity. By means of signals trans- 
mitted from perforated paper, Mr. Edison succeeded in applying 
it as a repeater, and transmitted fourteen hundred words from 
one circuit into another in one minute, which requires at least 
four hundred full and perfect movements of the lever each 
second! 

Modifications of this apparatus have been devised by the in- 
ventor, which enables it to work with positive and negative cur- 
rents, thus dispensing with the adjusting springs. From the fact 
that this instrument requires but small battery power and is 
remarkably sensitive to feeble currents, and can be used to record 
very delicate signals without electro-magnets, it is extremely 
probable that it will be the basis of new discoveries, among 
which is the solution of the problem of fast working through 
long sub-marine cables. "Important results," says Mr. Prescott 
**are to follow this discovery." 




98 



THOMAS A. EDISON 





Fig. I. Fig. 2. 

Fig. 1. Carbon Telephone — Interior. AA, Iron Diaphragm; B, India Rubber; C, Ivory; D 
Platina Plate ; E, Carbon Disk; G, Platina Screw. Fig. a. Exterior 
View of Edison's Telephone. 



The Telephone. 

Edison's Own Account of His Discovery of the Carbon Telephone — 
An Interesting History — His Explanation of the Wonder- 
ful Instrument — Illustrated by Numerous Engrav- 
ings — It Talks Over a Wire 720 Miles 
Long — His Other Telephones. 

"My first attempt at constructing an articulating telephone," 
says Mr. Edison, "was made with the Reiss transmitter and one 
of my resonant receivers, and my experiments in this direction, 
which continued until the production of my present carbon tel- 
ephone, cover many thousand pages of manuscript. I shall, 
however, describe here only a few of the more important ones. 

In one of the first experiments I included a simplified Reiss 
transmitter, having a platinum screw facing the diaphragm, in a 
circuit containing twenty cells of battery and the resonant re- 



AND HJS INVENTIONS. 99 

ceiver, and then placed a drop of water between the points; the 
results, however, \yhen the apparatus was in action, were unsatis- 
factory — rapid decomposition of the water took place and a 
deposit of sediment was left on the platinum. I afterwards used 
disks attached both to the diaphragm and to the screw, with sev- 
eral drops of water placed between and held there by capillary 
attraction, but rapid decomposition of the water, which was 
impure, continued, and the words came out at the receiver very 
much confused. Various acidulated solutions were then tried* 
but the confused sounds and decompositions were the only 
results obtained. 

With distilled water I could get nothing, probably because, at 
that time, I used very thick iron diaphragms, as I have since 
obtained good results; or, possibly, it was because the ear was 
not yet educated for this duty, and therefore I did not know 
what to look for. If this was the case, it furnishes a good illus- 
tration of the fact observed by Professor Mayer, that we often 
fail to distinguish weak sounds in certain cases when we do not 
know what to expect. 

Sponge, paper and felting, saturated with various solutions, 
were also used between the disks, and knife edges were substi- 
tuted for the latter with no better results. Points immersed 
in electrolytic cells were also tried, and the experiments with 
various solutions, devices, etc., continued until February, 1876, 
when I abandoned the decomposable fluids and endeavored 
to vary the resistance of the circuit proportionately with the am- 
pHtude of vibration of the diaphragm by the use of a multipli- 
city of platinum points, springs and resistance coils — all of which 
were designed to be controlled by the movements of the dia- 
phragm, but none of the devices were successful. 

In the spring of 1876, and durmg the ensuing summer, I en- 
deavored to utilize the great resistance of thin films of plumbago 
and white Arkansas oil stone, on ground glass, and it was here 
that I first succeeded in conveying over wires many articulated 
sentences. Springs attached to the diaphragm and numerous 
other devices were made to cut in and out of circuit more or less 



loo THOMAS A. EDISON 

of the plumbago film, but the disturbances which the devices 
themselves caused in the true vibrations of the diaphragm pre- 
vented the realization of any practical results. One of my as- 
sistants, however, continued the experiments without interruption 
until January, 1877, when I applied the peculiar property which 
semi-conductors have of varying their resistance with pressure, 
a fact discovered by myself in 1873, while constructing some 
rheostats for artificial cables, in which were employed powdered 
carbon, plumbago and other materials, in glass tubes. 

For the purpose of making this application, I constructed an 
apparatus provided with a diaphragm carrying at its centre a 
yielding spring, which was faced with platinum, and in front of 
this I placed, in a cup secured to an adjusting screw, sticks of 
crude plumbago, combined in various proportions with dry pow- 
ders, resins, etc. By this means I succeeded in producing a 
telephone which gave great volume of sound, but its articula- 
tion was rather poor; when once familiar with its peculiar sound, 
however, one experienced but little difficulty in understanding 
ordinary conversation. 

After conducting a long series of experiments with solid ma- 
terials, I finally abandoned them all and substituted therefor 
tufts of conducting fibre, consisting of floss silk coated with 
plumbago and other semi-conductors. The results were then 
very much better, but while the volume of sound was still great, 
the articulation was not so clear as that of the magneto tele- 
phone of Prof. Bell. The instrument, besides, required very 
frequent adjustment, which constituted an objectionable feature. 

Upon investigation, the difference of resistance produced by 
the varying pressure upon the semi-conductor was found to be 
exceedingly small, and it occurred to me that as so small a 
change in a circuit of large resistance was only a small factor, in 
the primary circuit of an induction coil, where a slight change of 
resistance would be an important factor, it would thus enable 
me to obtain decidedly better results at once. The experiment, 
however, failed, owing to the great resistance of the semi-con. 
ductors then used. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. loi 

After further experimenting in various directions, I was led to 
believe, if I could by any means reduce the normal resistance 
of the semi-conductor to a few ohms, and still effect a difference 
in its resistance by the pressure due to the vibrating diaphragm, 
that I could use it in the primary circuit of an induction coil. — 
Having arrived at this conclusion, I constructed a transmitter in 
which a button of some semi-conducting substance was placed 
between two platinum disks, in a kind of cup or small containing 
vessel. Electrical connection between the button and disks was 
maintained by the slight pressure of a piece of rubber tubing, 
^ inch in diameter and }^ inch long, which was secured to the 
diaphragm, and also made to rest against the outside disk. The 
vibrations of the diaphragm were thus able to produce the re- 
quisite pressure on the the platinum disk, and thereby. vary the 
resistance of the button included in primary circuit of the induc- 
tion coil. 

At first a button of solid plumbago, such as is employed by 
electrotypers, was used, and the results obtained were considered 
excellent, everything transmitted coming out moderately distinct, 
bat the volume of sound was no greater than that of the mag- 
neto telephone. 

In order, therefore, to obtain disks or buttons, which, with a 
low normal resistance, could also be made, by a slight pressure, 
to vary greatly in this respect, I at once tried a great variety of 
substances, such as conducthig oxides, sulphides and other par- 
tial conductors, among which was a small quantity of lampblack 
that had been taken from a smoking petroleum lamp and pre- 
served as a curiosity on account of its intense black color. 

A small disk made of this substance, when placed in the tele- 
phone, gave splendid results, the articulation being distinct, and 
the volume of sound several times greater than with telephones 
worked on the magneto principle. It was soon found upon in- 
vestigation, that the resistance of the disk could be varied from 
three hundred ohms to the fractional part of a single ohm by 
pressure alone, and that the best results were obtained when the 
resistance of the primary coil, in which the carbon disk was in- 



I02 THOMAS A. EDISON 

eluded, was six-tenths of an ohm, and the normal resistance of 
the disk itself three ohms. 

Mr. Henry Bentley, President of the Local Telegraph Com- 
pany, at Philadelphia, who has made an exhaustive series of ex- 
periments with a complete set of this apparatus upon the wires 
of the Western Union Telegraph Company, has actually suc- 
ceeded in working with it over a wire of 720 miles in length, 
and has found it a practicable instrument upon wires of 100 to 
200 miles in length, notwithstanding the fact that the latter were 
placed upon poles with numerous other wires, which occasioned 
sufficiently powerful induced currents in them to entirely destroy 
the articulation of the magneto telephone. I also learn that he 
has found the instrument practicable, when included in a Morse 
circuit, with a battery of eight or ten stations provided with the 
ordinary Morse apparatus; and that several way stations could 
exchange business telephonically upon a wire which was being 
worked with a quadruplex without disturbing the latter, and not- 
withstanding, also, the action of the powerful reversed currents 
of the quadruplex on the diaphragms of the receiver. It would 
thus seem as though the volume of sound produced by the voice 
with this apparatus more than compensates for the noise caused 
by such actions. 

While engaged in experimenting with my telephone for the 
purpose of ascertaining whether it might not be possible to dis- 
pense with the rubber tube which connected the diaphragm with 
the rheostatic disk, and was objectionable on account of its ten- 
dency to become flattened by continued vibrations, and thus 
necessitate the readjustment of the instrument, I discovered 
that my principle, unlike all other acoustical devices for the 
transmission of speech, did not require any vibration of the 
diaphragm — that, in fact, the sound waves could be transformed 
into electrical pulsations without the movement of any interven- 
ing mechanism. 

The manner in which I arrived at this result was as follows : — 
I first substituted a spiral spring of about a quarter inch in 
length, containing four turns of wire, for the rubber tube which 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 103 

connected the diaphragm with the disks. I found, however, 
that this spring gave out a musical tone, which interfered some- 
what with the effects produced by the voice ; but, in the hope 
of overcoming the defect, I kept on substituting spiral springs of 
thicker wire, and as I did so I found that the articulation became 
both clearer and louder. At last I substituted a solid substance 
for the springs that had gradually been made more and more 
inelastic, and then I obtained very marked improvements in the 
results. It then occurred to me that the whole question was one 
of pressure only, and that it was not necessary that the dia- 
phragm should vibrate at all. I consequently put in a heavy 
diaphragm, one and three quarter inches in diameter and one 
sixteenth inch thick, and fastened the carbon disk and plate 
tightly together, so that the latter showed no vibration with the 
loudest tones. Upon testing it I found my surmises verified; — 
the articulation was perfect, and the volume of sound so great 
that conversation carried on in a whisper three feet from the tel- 
ephone was clearly heard and understood at the other end of the 
line. This, therefore, is the arrangement I have adopted in my 
present form of apparatus, which I call the carbon telephone, to 
distinguish it from others. 

The accessories and connections of this apparatus for long 
circuits are shown in Fig. 3. A is an induction coil, whose 
primary wire, P, having a resistance of several ohms, is placed 
around the secondary, instead of within it as in the usual man- 
ner of construction. The secondary coil, s^ of finer wire, 
has a resistance of from 150 to 200 ohms, according to the de- 
gree of tension required; and the receiving telephone, R. con- 
sists simply of a magnet, coil, and diaphragm. One pole of the 
magnet is connected to the outer edge of the diaphragm, and 
the other, which, carries the wire bobbin of about 77 ohms re- 
sistance, and is included in the main line, is placed just op- 
posite its center. 

"P R. is the signaling relay, the lever of which, when actuated 
by the current from a distant station on the line in which the in- 
strument is included, closes a local circuit containing the vibra- 



104 



THOMAS A, EDISON 



ting call bell, B, and thus gives warning when speaking com- 
munication is desired. 

"Besides serving to operate the call bell, the local battery, E, 
is also used for sending the call signal. S is a switch, the lever 
of which, when placed at <?, between w, and «, disconnects the, 
transmitter, T, and local battery, E, from the coil. A, and in this 
position leaves this polarized relay, P R, free to respond to cur. 
rents from the distant station. When this station is wanted, how- 




Fig. 3 ; Telephone Apparatus. 

ever, the lever, S, is turned to the left on «, and depressed sev- 
eral times in rapid succession. The current from the local bat- 
tery, by this means, is made to pass through the primary coil 
of A, and thus for each make and brake of the circuit induces 
powerful currents in the secondary, j, which pass into the line 
and actuate the distant call bell. 

"When the call signals have been exchanged, both terminal 
stations place their switches to the right on m^ and thus intro- 
duce the carbon transmitter into their respective circuits. The 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 



lO! 



changes of pressure produced by speaking against the diaphragm 
of either transmitter, then serve, as already shown, to vary the 
resistance of the carbon, and thus produce corresponding varia- 
tions in the induced currents, which, acting through the re- 
ceiving instrument, reproduce at the distant station whatever 
has been spoken into the transmitting instrument. 

For hues of moderate lengths, say from one to thirty miles, 
another arrangement, shown in Fig. 4, may be used advantage- 




Fig. 4 ; Telephone Apparatus, with Switch. 

ously. The induction coil, key, battery, and receiving and 
transmitting telephones, are lettered the same as in the previous 
engraving, and are similar in every respect to the apparatus 
there shown; the switch, S, however, differs somewhat in con- 
struction from the one already described, but is made to serve a 
similar puipose. When a phig is inserted between 3 and 4 the 
relay or sounder, R,' battery E, and key, K, only are included 
in the main line circuit, and this is the noimal arrangement of the 
apparatus for signaling purposes. The battery, usually about 



io6 



THOMAS A, EDISON 



three cells of the Daniell form, serves also both for a local and 
main battery. When a plug is inserted between i, 2, and 4, the 
apparatus is available for telephonic communication. 

I have also found, on lines of from one to twenty miles in 
length, that the ordinary call can be dispensed with, and a sim- 
plified arrangement substituted. This latter consists simply of 
the ordinary receiving telephone, upon the diaphram of which a 
free lever, L, is made to rest, as shown in F]g. 5. When the in- 
duced currents from the distant station act upon the receiver, 
R, the diaphgram of the latter is thrown into vibration, but by 
itself is capable of giving only a comparatively weak sound; 
with the lever resting upon its center, however, a sharp, pene- 




Fig. 5 ; Lever Signal. 



trating noise is produced by the constant and rapid rebounds of 
the lever, which thus answers veiy well for calling purposes at 
stations where there is comparatively but little noise. 

Among the various other methods for signalling purposes 
which I have experimented with, I may mention the sounding 
of a note, by the voice, in a small Reiss's telephone; the employ- 
ment of a self-vibrating reed in the local circuit; and a break 
wheel with many cogs, so arranged as to interrupt the circuit 
when set in motion, 

I have also used direct and induced currents to release clock 
work, and thus operate a call, and in some of my earlier acoustic 
experiments tuning forks were used, whose vibrations in front- 
of magnets caused electrical currents to be generated in the coils 
surrounding the latter. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 



107 



By the further action of these currents on similar forks at a 
distant station, bells were caused to be rung, and signals thus 
given. Fig. 6 shows an arrangement of this kind. A and R 




Fig 6 ; Tuning Fork Signal. 

are two magnetized tuning forks, having the same rate of 
vibration and placed at two terminal stations. Electro-magnets 
m and m^ are placed opposite one of the prongs of the forks at 
each station, while a bell, C or D, stands opposite to the other. 
The coils of the magnet are connected respectively to the line 
wire and to earth. When one of the forks is set in vibration by 
a starting key provided for the purpose, the currents produced 
by the approach of one of its magnetized prongs towards the 




Fig. 7 ; Pendulum Signal. 

magnet, and its recession therefrom, pass into the line and to the 
further stations where their action soon causes the second fork 
to vibrate with constantly increasing amplitude, until the bell is 
struck and the signal given. 



io8 



THOMAS A. EDISON 



For lelephcnic calls the call bells are so arranged that the one 
opposite to the fork, which generates the currents, is thrown out 
ol the way of the latter's vibrations. 

Another call apparatus which I have used, is represented in 
Fig. 7. In this arrangement two small magnetic pendulums, 
whose rates of vibration are the same, are placed in front of 
separate electro-magnets, the helices of which join in the main 
line circuit. When one of the pendulums is put in motion, the 
currents generated by its forward and backward swings in front 
of the electro-magnet pass into the line, and at the opposite ter- 
minal, acting through the helix there, cause the second pendu- 
lum to vibrate in unison with the former. 




Fig. 8 ; Electrophons Telephone. 

Fig. 8 shows a form of electrophorus telephone which acts by 
the approach of the diaphragm contained in A or B towards, or 
its recession from, a highly charged electrophorus, C or D. 
The vibrations of the transmitting diaphragm cause a disturbance 
of the charge at both ends of the line, and thus give rise to 
faint sounds. Perfect insulation, however, is necessary, and 
either apparatus can be used both for transmitting and re- 
ceiving, but the results are necessarily very weak. 

Another form of electro-static telephone is shown in Fig. 9. — 
In this arrangement Deluc piles of some 20,000 disks each are 
contained in glass tubes, A and B., and conveniently mounted 
on glass, wood, or metal stands. The diaphragms, which are in 
electrical connection with the earth, are also placed opposite to 
one pole of each of the piles, while the opposite poles are joined 
together by the line conductor. Any vibration of either dia- 
phragm is thus capable of disturbing the electrical condition of 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 



109 



the neighboring disks, the same as in the electrophorus tele- 
ephones; and consequently the vibrations, when produced by 
the voice in one instrument, will give rise to corresponding elec- 




UHE 




Fig. 9; Electro-Static Telephone. 

trical changes in the other, and thereby reproduce in it what 
nas been spoken into the mouthpiece of the former. 

With this arrangement fair results may be obtained, and it is 
not necessary that the insulation should be so perfect as for the 
electrophorus apparatus. 




Fig. 10 : Electro-Mechanical Telephone. 

Fig. 10 shows a form of electro-mechanical telephone, by 
means of which I attempted to transmit electrical impulses of 
various strength so as to reproduce spoken words at a distance. 
Small resistance coils (i, 2, 3, etc.) were so arranged with con- 
necting springs near a platinum faced lever, B, in connection 
with the diaphragm in A, that any movement of the latter caused 
one or more of the coils to be cut in or out of the primary cir- 
cuit of an induction coil, C, the number, of course, varying 
with the amplitude of the vibrating diaphragm. Induced cur- 
rents corresponding in strength with the variations of resistance 
were thus sent into the line, and could then be made to act 



no 



THOMAS A. EDISON 



upon an ordinary receiving telephone. By arranging the springs 
in a sunflower pattern about a circular lever, articulate sentences 
have been traasmitted by this method, but the results were very 
harsh and disagreeable. 

Fig. II shows a form of the water telephone, in which a 
double cell was used so as to afford considerable variation of re- 
sistance for the very slight movements of the diaphragm. The 
action of the apparatus will readily be understood from the en- 




Fig, ii; Water Telephone. 

graving, where a wire in the form of the letter U is shown, 
with the bend attached to the diaphragm, and its ends dipping 
into the separate cells, and thus made to form part of the cir- 
cuit when the hne is joined to the instrument at a and c. 

I am now conducting experiments with a thermo-electric tele- 
phone, which gives some promise of becoming serviceable. In 
this arrangement a sensitive thermo-pile is placed in front of a 
diaphragm of vulcanite at each end of a line wire, in the circuit 
of which are included low resistance receiving instruments. The 
principle upon which the apparatus works depends upon the 
change of temperature produced in the vibrating diaphragm, 
which I have found is much lower as the latter moves forward, 
and is also correspondingly increased on the return movement. 

Sound waves are thus converted into heat waves of similar 
characteristic variations, and I am in hopes that I may ultimately 
be able, by the use of more sensitive thermo -piles, to transform 
these heat waves into electrical currents of sufficient strength to 
produce a practical telephone on this novel principle. 

Before concluding, I must mention an interesting fact con- 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. iii 

nected with telephonic transmission, which was discovered during 
some of my experiments with the magneto-telephone, and which 
is this, that a copper disk may be substituted for the iron dia- 
phragm now universally used. The same fact, I believe, has 
also been announced by Mr. W. H. Preece, to the Physical 
Society at London. 

If a piece of copper, say one sixteenth of an inch thick and 
three fourths of an inch in diameter, is secured to the center of 
a vulcanite diaphragm, the effect becomes quite marked, and the 
apparatus is even more sensitive than when the entire diaphragm 
is of copper. The cause of the sound is due, no doubt, to the 
production of very weak electrical currents in the copper disk. 

It will be seen from this description by Mr. Edison that the 
carbon telephone was not the work of a single day but of years, 
in which he labored with singular patience and tenacity. The 
genius of the instrument is the carbon button. This is the all 
essential factor, not only in the telephone, but in the tasimeter, 
and other inventions of Mr. Edison. It ranks among the grand- 
est discoveries of the nineteenth century. With the appliances 
already completed it is possible that a thunder-clap might be 
made to roll around the world, and in the near future, greater 
results will certainly come to pass. By this same marvelous 
button in the tasimeter, the heat of a telescopic star is definitely 
registered, and yet the nearest fixed star is over thirty trillions 
of miles distant from the earth. If not th^ philosopher's stone, it 
is certainly next to it, in its wonderful facilities for transforma- 
tions. 

Mr. Edison has very recently invented a new telephone 
receiver, in which no magnet is used. It is based upon the the 
principle of the electro-motograph, described elsewhere in this 
volume. By this new receiver the volume of the message trans- 
mitted is increased so as to be heard distinctly fifteen feet from 
the instrument. It is expected this new invention will render 
possible conversation through the Atlantic cable, and that be- 
tween the large cities throughout the country this will be a daily 
occurrence. He is also introducing a "double transmitter." 



112 THOMAS A. EDISON 

Testing Edison's Telephone. 

A Little Chat, Intermingled with Whispers, Between Persons 210 

Miles Apart — An Innocent Joke Perpetrated on Mr. 

Firman— Complete Success of the 

Carbon Telephone. 

A thorough and satisfactory test of Edison's Telephone was 
made January 5th, 1879, over a wire of the Western Union Tel- 
egraph company between Indianapolis and Chicago. The wire 
runs along the I. C. & L. Railroad to Lafayette; thence along 
the N. A. & C. Railroad to Wanatah; thence along the P. Ft. 
W. & C. Railroad to Chicago, being about two hundred and 
ten miles in length. When the reporter, whose account we here 
give, entered the Superintendent's rooms at the Indianapolis 
end, the experiment had already begun and almost the first thing 
he heard was the operator at that end, speaking in the telephone, 
saying: "Here comes 2i Journal man. Wait till I give him a re- 
ceiver, so he can hear you. " 

Another receiving telephone was attached and handed to the 
visitor, when the operator said, "Now, Mr. Wilson, at Chicago, 
I want to introduce Mr. Blank, of the Journal, at Indianapolis. 
Speak to him. He is listening. Be careful how you talk, he is 
liable to print it." 

Instantly came back, clear and distinct, as if spokeu through 
a tube from an adjoining room, "Good morning, Mr. Blank. I 
hope you are very well. Are you able to understand me?" 

"Perfectly," was the reply; "and I can hardly believe you are 
so far away. " 

"If you were acquainted with my voice, so as to recognize it, 
your belief would be strengthened. " 

"Yes, very likely. I can see that if I were acquainted with 
your voice, I could easily recognize it. Have you ever talked 
this far before?" 

"Oh, yes, we had a chat with your Indianapolis friends two or 
three Sundays ago, which was very satisfactory. We even ex- 
changed whispers that day. Let's try it now. Listen closely. " 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 113 

A whisper sound was heard. When notified that ten would 
be counted it was readily recognized in a whisper. 

Mr. Smith, of the W. U. T. Company, then stepped to the 
instrument and spoke to Mr. Wilson, at Chicago. 

"Good morning, Charlie." 

"Good morning, Mr. Smith." 

"You know me, do you?" 

"Why, of course I do. Pretty cold morning, this." 

"Pretty cool here; we are getting used to it though. The wire 
works nicely, don't it?" 

"Yes, indeed, couldn't ask anything better. 

"Say, Charlie?" 

"Well." 

"Have you a wire over to the Telephone Exchange?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"See if you can find Mr. Firman at his office or his house, and 
connect that wire to this. " 

"All right. Guess I can find him in a few minutes." 

"Just say that some one wants to speak with him, but don't 
say who or where. " 

"All right; we'll have some fun with the gentleman if I can 
find him. I'll call you ; look out for me. " 

"Ail right." 

Mr. Firman is the General Manager of the Telephone Ex- 
change and American District Telegraph Company in Chicago. 
After waiting perhaps three minutes, Mr. Wilson's voice was 
heard : 

"Mr. Firman's at home. I'm going to connect you. Speak 
to him. Now!" 

"Haltoo, Firman!" 

"Halloo, yourself! What do you'want?" 

"Well, I wanted to say good morning, but you seem a little 
bit crusty, so I won't. " 

"Well, I take it all back. I'm glad to see you. How are you, 
any how? When did you come to town?" 

"Guess you don't know who you are talking to." 
8 



114 THOMAS A, EDISON 

"I'm talking to Wiley Smith, or I'm very much mistaken." 

""You are right. Thought I would beat you this time." 

"Oh, no! my telephone experience has enabled me to recall 
familiar voices without many mistakes now. Where are you 
stopping?" 

"What do you mean?" ' 

"Why, where are you stopping? — what hotel?" 

"I don't need to stop at a hotel. I have a home, wife, and 
children — why should I go to a hotel?" 

"Well, now, where are you?" 

"I'm in Mr. Wallack's office." 

"At Indianapolis?" 

"Yes." 

"Thunder you are.** 

"Yes; I was talking to Charlie Wilson, and got him to connect 
you without posting you. " 

"That's good enough. Why, I get you splendidly; No trouble 
at all." 

Mr. Firman and Mr. Smith then talked quite a while about 
instruments, batteries, and such things. The conversation with 
Mr. Firman concluded with a description of a novel business 
meeting : 

"Firman, I want you to tell a gentleman here, who is listening, 
about that Director's meeting you told me of the last time I saw 
you. " 

"Certainly. We had a Director's meeting of our Company. 
At the hour appointed we lacked three of a quorum. Of course, 
they all have telephone wires to their houses, by means of which 
we learned they could not be present. It was suggested, and 
carried out, that the meeting be held by telephone. The wires 
were connected so all could hear anything said. The gentle- 
man who had prepared the resolution we wanted to consider 
read it from his house; the President asked each how he should 
vote, and receiving their replies declared the resolution adopted, 
and ordered the Secretary to record it. Several lawyers who 
have heard of it gave it as their opinion that the meeting was a 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 115 

legal one. If that's all, I will ask to be excused; my wife wants 
to go to church. " 

"All right; remember us in your prayers.** 

"Contract is too large." 

"You can go now." 



Wonderful Olfactory Powers of the Telephone (?) 

When the telephone line connecting the water works at the 
foot of Chicago Avenue with the new water works at Twenty- 
second street and Ashland Avenue was completed, Mr. Creiger, 
chief engineer of the Chicago Avenue estabhshment — ^who by 
the way is something of a wag — desiring to test the new tele- 
phone adjustment called up the institution at the other end of 
the hne. On receiving a prompt answer, Mr. Creiger said : 

"Is that you, John?" 

"Yes," said John. 

C. "How do you feel this afternoon, John?" 

J. "Very well, I thank you." 

C. "Been eating onions, aint you, John?" 

J. (Turning round to an operator near by says ) : "Thunder ! 
I knew we could talk through this thing, but I didn't know before 
that a feller could smell through it !" 

As a matter of fact John had eaten heartily of onions that day 
for dinner, and for the time being was thoroughly convinced of 
this new attribute of the telephone. 



A Canada gentleman stepped into a friend's office in Chicago, 
one day, just in time to hear the closing words of a telephone 
conversation between the Chicago man and another party. 

"Oh, Shut up," says the Chicago man, "I can smell your 
breath. Don't smoke any more of those blamed poor cigars 
when I am talking to you. " 

"Great Caesar!" says the Canada friend, "You can't j-w^// 
through that thing can you?" 

C. M. "Oh, yes, splendidly." (C. M. who had been smoking. 



ii6 THOMAS A, EDISON 

quietly puffs into the telephone,) "If you don't believe it just 
come and try it yourself." 

C. F. (Stepping up to the telephone) "Halloo." 

"Halloo," (By distant party.) 

C. F. (Applies nasal organ) "I'll declare! you can smell his 
breath, can't you? I wouldn't have believed it." 



Burdette and Edison Testing the Spanktrophone ! 

Burdette, of the Burlington Hawkeye, perpetrates the fol- 
lowing in the interest of "transmission of sound(?)" 

We remember meeting Mr. Edison, some years ago, when he 
was most deeply absorbed in his experiments relating to the con- 
ductibility of sound through the various mediums, and had a 
long and interesting conversation with him upon that subject. — 
We conversed upon the well-known fact that the same medium 
of transmission has different properties at different times. We 
both cited instances in which a man forty-three years old, though 
using his utmost strength of lung and voice, could not shout 
loud enough, at 6:30 in the morning, to awaken a boy nine years 
old just on the other side of a lath and plaster partition, while 
at 1 1 o'clock that night the same boy would hear a low whistle 
on the sidewalk, through three doors and two flights of stairs, 
and would spring instantly out of a sound sleep in response to 
it. It was a belief of Mr. Edison's at that time, that sound 
could be made to travel as rapidly as feeling, and to test the 
matter he had invented a delicate machine called the spank- 
trophone, which he was just about trying when we met him. — 
We were greatly interested in the machine and readily agreed 
to assist in the experiment. By the aid of Mr. Edison and a 
street-car nickel, we enticed into the laboratory a boy about 7 
years old. After many times reassuring him and promising him 
solemnly that he would not be hurt, we got the machine attached 
to him, and the great inventor laid the boy across his knees in 
the most approved old-fashioned Solomonic method. On a disc 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 117 

of the machine dehcate indices were to record, one the exact 
time of the sound of the spank, the other the exact second the 
boy howled. The boy was a little suspicious at this point of the 
experiment, and with his head partly turned, was glaring fear- 
fully at the inventor. Mr. Edison raised his hand. A piercing 
howl rent the air, followed by a sharp concussion like the snap- 
ping of a musket cap, and when we examined the dial plate of the 
machine, infallible science proudly demonstrated that the boy 
howled sixty-eight seconds before he was slapped. The boy went 
down stairs in three strides, with an injured look upon his fearful 
face. Mr. Edison threw the machine out of the window after 
the urchin, and we felt that it was no time to intrude upon the 
sorrows of a great soul, writhing under a humiliating sense of fail- 
ure. We have never met Mr. Edison since, but we have always 
thought he didn't know much about boys, or he would know how 
utterly unreliable the best of them would be for a scientific 
experiment. 



Eli Perkins and Mr. Edison. 

In the course of human events, Eli Perkins would naturally 
meet with Mr. Edison. On one occasion, according to E. P.'s 
version, the intei"view was as follows : 

It pains me to hear of so many people being burned on 
account of elevators, and defective flues. To-day Prof. Edison 
and I laid a plan before the Fire Inspectors which, if carried 
out, will remedy the evil. 

When I called on Prof. Edison at Menlo Park, he was engaged 
on a new experiment. He was trying to abstract the heat from 
the fire, so as to leave the fire perfectly harmless, while the heat 
could be carried away in flour-barrels to be used for cooking. 
Then the professor tried experiments in concentrating water 
to be used in the engines in case of drought. The latter exper- 
iment proved eminently successful. Twelve barrels of Croton 
water were boiled over the stove, and evaporated down to a 
and this was sealed in a small phial, to be diluted and 



ii8 THOMAS A. EDISON 

to put out fires in cases of drought, or in cases where no Croton 
water can be had. In some cases the water was evaporated 
and concentrated till it became a fine dry powder. This fine, 
diy powder, the Professor tells me, can be carried around in the 
pockets of the firemen, and be blown upon the fires through tin 
horns, — that is, it is to extinguish the fire in a horn. 

I examined the Professor's pulverized water with great interest, 
took a horn — in my hands — and proceeded to elucidate to him 
my plan for constructing fire-proof flues. I told him that, to 
make fire-proof flues, the holes of the flues should be con- 
structed of solid cast-iron, or some other non-combustible mate- 
rial, and then cold corrugated iron, without any apertures, should 
be poured around them. 

"Wonderful!" exclaimed Prof. Edison in a breath; "but where 
will you place those flues, Mr. Perkins?" 

"My idea," I replied, drawing a diagram on the wall-paper with 
a piece of charcoal, "is to have these flues in every instance 
located in the adjoining house." 

"Magnificent! but how about the elevator?" asked the Pro- 
fessor. 

"Why, after putting them in the next house, too, I'd seal them 
up water-tight, and fill them with Croton, and then let .them 
freeze. Then I'd turn them bottom side up, and, if they catch 
fire, the flames will only draw down into the cellar. " 

Prof. Edison said he thought, my invention would eventually 
supersede the telephone and do away entirely with the necessity 
of the Keely motor!' 



Satisfactory Evidence. 

One day, just before a thunder-storm, a man stepped into a 
telegraph oflice and requested the privilege of talking through 
the telephone with his wife, who was visiting the Manager's wife 
at a distant telegraph station. The Assistant manager granted 
the request, and the man began operations. He couldn't be 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 119 

prevailed upon to believe that it was really his wife who was 
talking to him, and she so many miles away. He finally asked 
her to say or do something known to themselves only, that he 
might be convinced that it was she. Just then a rambling streak 
of lightning came on the wires, hitting the husband on the head, 
when he jumped to his feet and exclaimed: "Oh-o-oh dear! — 
I am satisfied; all correct; It's her!" 



Dawdles Tries the Telephone. 

Mr. Bassingbal, city merchant, enjoys the luxury of a private 
wire. He was ecstatic over his wonderful telephone and in 
describing it to a special friend one day said : 

"Oh, it's magnificent; very convenient! I can converse with 
Mrs. B. just as if I was in my own drawing room. Stop; I'll 
tell her you are here. (Speaks through the telephone.) 

"Dawdles is here — just come from Paris — looking so well — de- 
sires to be, " etc., etc. "Now take the receiver, Mr. D., and 
you'll hear her voice distinctly" 

Dawdles. "Weally!" (Dawdles takes it and adjusts to his 
ear.) 

The voice. " For goodness sake, don't bring that insufferable 
noodle home to dine!" , 



The Telephone and tne Doctors. 

A novel use of the Telephone ii. shown in the following 
instance, related by a physician of Chicago. 

"I attended a family on the North Side near Lincoln Park. 
The other evening about 11 p. m. they 'called' me through the 
telephone, saying: "Our baby is taken suddenly ill,— we fear 
croup, — can you prescribe without coming over?' I said 
'We will see.' Has the child fever? What is its temperature? 
In a few moments came the answer, 'Temperature 103, — skin 
hot and dry.' (They have a clinical thermometer.) 'Is the 



I20 THOMAS A. EDISON 

breathing quick?' *No, but it is labored. He coughs all the 
time. 'Bring the child as near as possible to the 'receiver,' and 
let me hear him cough. In a moment there came with startling 
distinctness to my ear the shrill, crowing, unmistakable cough as 
characteristic of croup ! I directed them to hold the child there 
till he cried. In a minute or two I heard the cry, — not natural, 
but hoarse, still further verifying my diagnosis. Knowing that 
they possessed a chest of medicines, I directed them to give 
aconite and sanguinaria in rapid alternation, and make certain 
applications to the throat. The answer came, *we have aconite, 
but no sanguinaria.' 

"Well, Doctor, what could you do in such a dilemma? 

"Fortunately there is a druggist within a few blocks, who on 
inquiry at the central office, I ascertained possesses a telephone. 
It was not the work of five minutes to call him up, and direct 
him to send to No. — on X street a prescription containing the 
required sanguinaria. It was put up, delivered, and administered 
inside of half an hour, and the whole transaction, consultation 
and all, did not extend over that time. 

The wonderful fidelity with which the telephone transmits the 
peculiarities of the human voice and all other sounds is mar- 
velous. I can distinguish the laugh of each member of a family, 
and even any variation from the natural voice of those with 
whom I am acquainted. Also the nasal voice which accompanies 
catarrh, as any variety of cough. 

"The telephone of the future will enable us to recognize condi- 
tions of morbid states in patients who are miles away, as well as 
if they were sitting in our offi.ces. With a microphone attach- 
ment, we may be able to hear the beating of the heart, and any 
of its abnormal sounds, and possibly, to record the tracings of 
the pulse, to hear abnormal sounds occurring during respiration, 
and perhaps count the number of respirations per minute. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 121 

The Telephonograph. 

Combination of the Telephone and Phonograph. 

Mr. Edison has devised a new instrument that combines the 
telepone and phonograph, which he calls the Teleponograph. 
It is a simple combination of the two instruments as shown in 
the accompanying diagram. The drum of the phonograph is 
shown in section. The diaphragm, instead of being vibrated by 




The Telephonograph. 

the voice, is vibrated by the currents which traverse the helix H, 
and which originate at a distant station. The object of this new 
instrument is to obtain a record of what is said at the distant 
office, which can be converted into sound when d6sired. The 
instrument gives additional significance to the phonograph. 



Edison's "Baby." 

Among the many instruments which Mr. Edison has con- 
structed, he has perhaps been more enthusiastic over this 
than all others. For some time after its invention it was his 
custom to exhibit this with great pride. On one occasion when 
showing a company of friends through the Labratory at Menlo 
Park, he remarked as they came to the Phonogragh: "I have 
invented a great many machines, but this," said he, (patting the 
phonograph) is my baby, and I expect it to grow up and be a 
big fellow and support me in my old age. " 



122 THOMAS A. EDISON 

The Megaphone. 

This is among Mr. Edison's latest discoveries, and has a curi- 
ous origin. "Strange as it may seem," says Mr. Edison, "it came 
to life through the mistake of a reporter. " To use his own words, 
"a reporter came to see my phonograph and went back and 
got it mixed up in his paper. He stated that I had got up a ma- 
chine to make partially deaf people hear. The item was exten- 
sively copied, but I thought nothing more of it until after a while 
I found myself receiving letters from all over the country asking 
about it. I answered some, saying it was a mistake, but they 
kept piling in upon me until I was getting them at the rate of 
twenty and thirty a day. Then I began thinking about the mat- 
ter and began experimenting. One day while at work on it I 
heard some one loudly singing 'Mary Had a Little Lamb.' I 
looked around, nobody was near me and nobody was singing. — 
Then I discovered that the singer was one of my young men, 
who, in a distant corner of the room, was softly singing to him- 
self The instrument had magnified the sound, and I heard it 
distinctly, although I'm pretty deaf, while others in the room had 
not heard a whisper. That was the first of the megaphone. " 

No electricity is used in this instrument. It is a peculiarly 
constructed ear trumpet. For use in the open air it is made 
very large and consists of two great ear-trumpets and a speaking 
trumpet; mounted together upon a tripod. Two persons pro- 
vided with this instrument are enabled to converse in the ordina- 
ry tones of voice some miles apart. 

A smaller instrument is made for deaf persons, which is porta- 
ble and adjustable, similar to an opera glass, by means of which 
a whisper is heard through the largest hall. While on a recent 
visit to Chicago, Mr. Edison, in view of his own deafness, face- 
tiously remarked to a friend that he ought to have had one of 
these instruments with him, and in the same strain described the 
trumpet as one that was unnecessary to "bawl into!" 

Mr. Edison is now improving the megaphone, and states that 
he will use electricity in its construction which will require a 
small battery. It will doubtless prove a blessing to deaf persons. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 123 

The Sonorous Voltameter. 

This high-sounding-titled instrument is amusingly described by 
Mr. Edison, to a friend, as follows : 

"Have you seen the Sonorous Voltameter yet?" said Mr. E. to 
his friend. 

The friend admitted that the sonorus voltameter was as yet 
outside the pale of his scientific education, and asked for light on 
the subject. 

Mr. Edison doffed his hat; and by a dexterous throw landed 
it on a table several feet away. Then he took paper and pencil 
and drew a sonorous voltameter. 

"There she is," he exclaimed, joyfully, as he put on the fin- 
ishing touches to a complex arrangement of wires, batteries, 
tubes, and funnels. 

"What is she good for," inquired the friend, adopting the in- 
ventor's metaphor and gazing on the unintelligible combination. 

"First-class arrangement. Tells of the strength of telegraph 
batteries right to a dot. It makes you hear their strength. This 
end of the wire, you see, makes the oxygen, and this end hydro- 
gen. The bubbles rise and make a noise, which is magnified by 
the funnel. These glass tubes indicate the intensity of the current 
by degrees, and the funnel indicates the same by sound. You 
take your watch and count the number of ticks caused by the 
bubbles per second. Thus you know how strong your battery 
is. Just try it some time. 

The astonished companion promised that the first time he 
found a battery lying around without any owner he would clap 
on a sonorous voltameter and find out all about it. 



Edison Joking his Friends. 

Mr. Edison is fond of joking with his intimate friends. In the 
presence of a company of these one day at Melno Park, and 
just as they were drawing on their great coats preparatory to de- 



124 THOMAS A. EDISON 

parture, Mr. Edison astounded the party by gravely announcing 
as follows : 

"Gentlemen, I am now about to tell you something that will 
astonish all the electricians in the world. I am prepared to send 
a current of electricity from here to Philadelphia without any 
wire. 

Down came the great coats in a hurry. 

"Why Al, (his second name is Alva, and many of his friends 
call him Al,) that's impossible," said a friend, who was an old 
telegraph operator. 

"Oh, no," answered Mr. Edison. "It can be done, and I 
know it. It is the result of a recent discovery. " 

" How, " inquired several at once. 

"Store it up in a condenser and send it there by express," was 
the reply. "Now don't give it away to the newspaper men." 

Ha, Ha, Ho, Ho, just so, you're right, said his friend. 



Down in the Gold Mines. 

During his trip to the Rocky Mountains Mr. Edison visited a 
number of the gold mines. It was soon reported that he had 
discovered a method of finding gold without digging for it. — 
This, he pronounced a misstatement, and says : 

What I did get up was a simple contrivance for ascertaining 
the quantity of ore in any given place once gold is struck. It is 
a very simple thing and absolutely reliable. 

"The ore is surrounded by a bed or bank of conducting ma- 
teriaL For instance, in th^ mines which I examined that 
material was clay. The quantity of clay is an indication of the 
quantity of ore. When ore is struck thousands are often ex- 
pended in drilling for more, when in reality the vein is completely 
exhausted. The contrivance I suggested enables the miner to 
know whether or not the vein is exhausted. I simply make 
a ground connection and run a wire through a battery and in- 
strument. Now, I take the other end of the wire down the 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 125 

shaft and connect it with the clay or other conducting material 
surrounding the ore. If the clay bank is extensive the connec- 
tion is a good one, and the current of electricity flows freely; — 
but if the clay bank is small in area a poor connection is formed. 
By adopting a unit of measurement the area can be told almost 
to the square foot. 



Edison's Anecdote of the Rocky Mountain Scouts. 

Mr. Edison made an extensive trip to the Mocky Mountains 
in July, 1878, to test his tasimeter on the sun's corona during a 
total eclipse of that luminary. While there, he went off buf- 
falo hunting, which gave occurrence to the following little story, 
in the presence of a few friends, after his return to Menlo Park : 

"That Western country is a great country," his face beaming 
as he thought of his recent vacation. "Those scouts out there 
are wonderful fellows. One of them tracked us on one occasion 
over a distance of eighty miles, and all that he had to guide him 
was tobacco juice. " 

"Tobacco juice! How in the world could tobacco juice 
guide a man?" asked one of his friends. 

"It happened in this way. A cable dispatch came for me at 
RawHns, but I had gone out hunting with a party of thirteen, 
some of whom were old Western hunters. Word was cabled 
back that the message could not be delivered, as our whereabouts 
were unknown. Soon an answer came to send out a scout in 
search of us. The scout traveled for three days over the wildest 
sort of country, with nothing to guide him but tobacco juice, 
which the hunters of our party, who were inveterate chewers, left 
behind. Once he lost the trail and was for hours in doubt, but 
he again got it. Sharp fellows, those scouts. " 



126 THOMAS A. EDISOJST 



The Tasimeter or Thermopile. 

An Instrument that Measures the Heat of the Stars — How it is 
Done — Full Account of Its Discovery. 

This is a new invention by Mr. Edison for measuring to an 
astonishing exactness a very low degree of heat. It is so sen- 
sitive in its operating facilities that it registers the heat from the 
fixed stars and will no doubt, from this fact, prove a great ad- 
junct in the science of astronomy. It also registers with equal 
precision the presence of moisture. It ranks among the most 
wonderful of Mr. Edison's many inventions and is described in 
his own language as follows : 

"It consists of a carbon button placed between two metalic 
plates. A current of electricity is passed through one plate, 
then through the carbon, and through the other plate. A piece 
of hard rubber or of gelatine is so supported as to press against 
these plates. The whole is then placed in connection with a gal- 
vanometer and an electric battery. Heat causes the strip of hard 
rubber to expand and press the plates closer together on the 
carbon, allows more current to pass through, and deflects the 
needle of the galvanometer. Cold decreases the pressure. — 
Moisture near the strip of the gelatine can be measured in the 
same way by increasing or decreasing the pressure and accord- 
ingly deflecting the needle. By means of this apparatus or one 
combined with sensitive electrical galvanometers it is possible to 
measure the millionth part of a degree Fahrenheit. Infinitesi- 
imal changes in the moisture of the atmosphere can be indicated 
in the same way, — changes which are a hundred thousand times 
less in quantity than those that can be indicated by the present 
barometer. It will thus foretell a storm much more readily. — 
The carbon button I have in this instrument is of lampblack 
burned from rigolene. I discovered about two years ago that 
carbon of various forms, such as plumbago, graphite, gas retort 
carbon, and lampblack, when molded in buttons, decreased the 
resistance to the passage of the electrical current by pressure. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. . 127 

This is part of the apparatus of the carbon telephone and micro- 
phone. 

The Tasimeter was discovered by Mr. Edison in the following 
manner : During his investigations, which resulted in the inven- 
tion of his carbon telephone, Mr. Edison found that carbon was 
subject to. expansion and contraction under conditions of elec- 
tric influence and pressure that made it the most sensitive sub- 
stance within reach of the scientist. Applying this discovery 
to the measurement of heat, he found that by using even an or- 
dinary electronemer, the pressure on the carbon disk caused by 
the expansion of any substance acted on by even the lowest 
degree of heat reacted so as to govern the movements of the 
balanced needle over a finely graduated scale. This invention 
he has been long engaged in perfecting. He was invited by 
Prof. Langley, of Pittsburg, to adapt it for measuring the heat of 
stellar spectra. This he has succeeded in accomplishing, with 
such wonderful success that he is now able to measure the heat 
of even the telescopic stars. By focussing the heat rays of these 
distant bodies so as to concentrate them on the substance press- 
ing on the carbon button, he is enabled to measure accurately 
their relative and actual heats. In this way it is not improbable 
astronomical researches as to the distance of the stars from the 
earth, may be measured by their degrees of heat acting on the 
thermopile. The condition of moisture can also be determined 
by its effect on a bar of gelatine substituted for the hard rubber 
used for measuring heat. Indeed so sensitive to the influence of 
moisture is this delicate instrument, that a little water spilled on 
the ground in the same room with the instrument, or even, as 
Mr. Edison asserts, spitting on the floor will be indicated by the 
the movement of the the balanced-needle. 



123 



THOMAS A. EDISON 



The Tasimeter and the Stars. 

Explanation — Test — The Heat of Arcturus Registered. 

The value of the tasimeter lies in its ability to detect the 
smallest variation in temperature. This is accomplished indi- 
rectly. The change of temperature causes expansion or con- 
traction of a rod of vulcanite, which changes the resistance 
of an electric circuit by varying the pressure it exerts upon a 
carbon-button included in the circuit. During the eclipse of 
July 29, 1878, it was thoroughly tested by Mr. Edison, and dem- 
demonstrated the existence of heat in the corona. 




The Tasimeter. 

The instrument, as used on that occasion by Mr. Edison is 
shown in section in the engraving, which afifoids an insight into 
its construction and mode of operation. The subtance where 
expansion is to be measured is shown at A. It is firmly clamped 
at B, its lower end fitting into a slot in the metal plate M, which 
rests upon the carbon-button, C. The latter is in an electric 
circuit, which includes a delicate galvanometer. Any variation 
in the length of the rod changes the pressure upon the carbon, 
and alters the resistance of the circuit. This causes a deflec- 
tion of the galvanometer-needle — a movement in one direction 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 129 

denoting expansion of A, while an opposite motion signifies con_ 
traction. To avoid any deflection which might arise from change 
in strength of battery, the tasimeter is inserted in an arm of the 
Wheatstone bridge. 

In order to ascertain the exact amount of expansion in deci- 
mals of an inch, the screw, S, seen in front of the dial, is turned 
until the deflection previou:ly caused by the change of tempera- 
ture is reproduced. This screw works a second screw, causing 
the rod to ascend or descend, and the exact distance through 
which the rod moves is indicated by the needle, N, on the dial. 

This novel instrument was completed only two days before 
Mr. Edison went West in July, 1878, to experiment on the sun's 
corona. It was set up immediately on his arrival at Rawlins, 
but he found great difficulty in fully adjusting so delicate an in- 
strument. This, he however, finally effected by new and ingen- 
ious devices, which he designates "fractional balancing." In 
order to form some idea of the delicacy of the apparatus when 
thus adjusted to measure the smallest amount of heat, "the tasi- 
meter," says Mr. Edison, "being attached to the telescope, the 
image of the star A returns was brought on the vulcanized rubber. 
The spot of light from the galvanometer moved to the side of 
heatr 

After some minor adjustments, five uniform and successful de. 
flections were obtained with the instrument, as the light of the 
star was allowed to fall on the vulcanite to produce the deflec- 
tion, or was screened off to allow of a return to zero. " The 
tasimeter on this occasion was placed in a double tin case, with 
water at the temperature of the air between each case. This 
case was secured to a Dollond telescope of four inches aperture. 



Testing the Tasimeter on the Sun's Corona. 

This wonderful invention was tested by Mr. Edison at Raw- 
lins, Wyoming Territory, on the sun's corona during the total 
eclipse of July 29th. 1878. Though attended with much labor 
9 



^2><=> THOMAS A. EDISON 

and difficulties the demonstration was successful. A graphic 
description of the first great trial of the tasimeter appeared at 
the time in a New York journal, from which we give the fol- 
lowing extract : ♦ 

But a new evil soon became manifest. A strong wind began 
blowing the frail pine structures used for observatories. These 
commenced to rock. Edison's observatory, which, in its normal 
condition, is a hen-house, was particularly susceptible. He 
hun-ied toward it only to find his sensitively-adjusted apparatus 
in an extreme state of commotion. Every vibration threw the 
tasimeter into a new condition of adjustment. To remedy the 
evil was far from easy, as the time was then so short and precious 
it was too late to remove the apparatus, and seemingly impossi- 
ble to break the force of the wind, which was gradually increas- 
into a tornado. Hatless and coatless he ran to a neighboring 
lumber-yard, and in a moment a dozen stalwart men were car- 
rying boards with which to prop up the structure and erect a 
temporary fence at its side. This completed, the chronometer 
indicated half-past one o'clock. 

At thirteen minutes past 2 the moon began to make her first 
appearance between the sun and earth. Again Edison adjusted 
his tasimeter, but only to find that the gale continued to sway 
his projecting telescope so violently that a satisfactory result was 
almost impossible. A rigging of wire and ropes soon partially 
overcame the difficulty, and once more the instruments were 
ready for work. In a few moments there came Dr. Draper and 
the announcement, "There she goes," and the crowd of specta- 
tors immediately leveled their smoked glasses at the sun. The 
moon had just made her appearance. 

At half-past i p. m. one quarter of the sun's disc was darkened 
with slow but steady pace. The progress of the moon continued. 
In the observatory of Dr. Draper the fall of a pin could be 
heard; outside almost equal quiet reigned. The only place of 
disorder was in that frail structure of Edison's. Notwithstand- 
ing his efforts the wind continued to give him trouble. In vain 
he adjusted and readjusted. At 3 o'clock three-quarters ot the 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 131 

sun's disc was obscured, and darkness began to fall upon the 
surrounding region. The hills around were all alive with people 
watching for the moment of totality. In Dr. Draper's observa- 
tory everything was proceeding excellently. The force of the 
wind had been broken. Edison's difficulty seemed to increase 
as the precious moments of total eclipse drew near. At five 
minutes past 3 o'clock, the sun's disc was seven-eighths covered, 
and the country around was shrouded in a pale grayish light, 
resembling early dawn. 

At a quarter past 3 darkness was upon the face of the earth. 
The few moments for which the astronomers had traveled thou- 
sands of miles had arrived. Still Edison's tasimeter was out of 
adjustment. All the other instruments were in excellent working 
order. Totality had brought with it a marked cessation in the 
force of the wind. Edison worked assiduously, but the tasimeter 
would not come to a proper condition. At last, just as the 
chronometer indicated that but one minute remained of total 
eclipse, he succeeded in concentrating the light from the corona 
upon the small opening of the instrument. Instantly the fire ray 
of light on his graduating scale swept along to the right, clear- 
ing its boundaries. Edison was overjoyed. The experiment has 
shown the existence of about fifteen times more heat in the 
corona than that obtained from the star Arcturus the previous 
night. 

Edison's tasimeter showed its power to measure the corona's 
heat. It, however, was adjusted ten times too sensitively. Never 
having used it before for a similar purpose, he had no means of 
telling the degree of sensitiveness necessary. The heat from 
the corona threw the ray of light entirely off the scale, and before 
he could make the second test the eclipse had passed away. The 
experiment demonstrated that, compared to some of the fixed 
stars, the corona's heat was much greater. 




132 THOMAS A. EDISON 

Basis of the Tasimeter. 

The tasimeter is a modification of the micro-tasimeter which 
is the outcome of Mr. Edison's experiments with his carbon 
telephone. Having experimented with diaphragms of various 
thicknesses, he ascertained that the best results were secured by 
using the thicker diaphragms. At this stage he experienced a 
new difficulty. So sensitive was the carbon button to the 
changes of condition, that the expansion of the rubber telephone 
handle rendered the instrument inarticulate, and finally inopera- 
tive. Iron handles were substituted with a similar result, but 
with the additional feature of musical and creaky tones distinct- 
ly audible in the receiving instrument. These sounds Mr. 
Edison attributes to the movement of the molecules of iron 
among themselves during expansion. He calls them "molecular 
music." To avoid these disturbances in the telephone, the 
handle was dispensed with; but it had done a great ser- 
vice in revealing the extreme sensitiveness of the carbon 
button, and this discovery opened the way for the invention of 
this new and wonderful instrument. 

The micro-tasimeter is represented in perspective in fig, 12, 
in section in fig. 13, and the plan upon which it is arranged in 
the electric circuit is shown in fig. 14. 

The instrument consists essentially in a rigid iron frame for 
holding the carbon button, which is placed between two plati- 
num surfaces, one of which is fixed and the other moveable, and 
in a device for holding the object to be tested, so that the pres- 
sure resulting from the expansion of the object acts upon the 
carbon button. 

Two stout posts A, B, project from the rigid base piece, c A 
vulcanite disc d, is secured to the post a, by the platinum-headed 
screw E, the head of which rests in the bottom of a shallow 
circular cavity in the centre of the disc. In this cavity, and in 
contact with the head of the screw e, the carbon button r, is 
placed. Upon the outer face of the button there is a disc of 
platinum foil, which is in electrical communication with the 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 



133 



battery. A metalic cupc, is placed in contact with the platinum 
disc to receive one end of the strip of whatever material is em- 
ployed to operate the instrument. 

The post B, is about four inches from the post a, and contains 




Fig 13. Fig. 14. 

a screw-acted follower h, that carries a cup i, between which 
and the cup g, is placed a strip of any substance whose expansi- 
bility it is desired to exhibit. The post a, is in electrical com- 
munication wnth a galvanometer, and the galvanometer is 



134 THOMAS A. EDISON 

connected with the battery. The strip of the substance to be 
tested is put under a small initial pressure, which deflects the 
galvanometer needle a few degrees from the needle point. When 
the needle comes to rest, its position is noted. The slightest 
subsequent expansion or contraction of the strip will *be indicated 
by the movement of the galvanometer needle. A thin strip of 
hard rubber, placed in the instrument, exhibits extreme sensi- 
tiveness, being expanded by heat from the hand, so as to move 
through several degrees the needle of a very ordinary galvanom- 
eter, which is not effected in the slightest degree by a thermopile 
facing and near a red hot iron. The hand, in this experiment, 
is held a few inches from the rubber strip. A strip of mica is 
sensibly affected by the heat of the hand, and a strip of gelatin, 
placed in the instrument, is instantly expanded by moisture from 
a dampened piece of paper held two or three inches away. 

For these experiments the instrument is arranged as in fig. 1 2, 
but for more delicate operations it is connected with a Thom- 
son's reflecting galvanometer, and the current is regulated by a 
Wheatstone's bridge and a rheostat, so that the reistance on 
both sides of the galvanometer is equal, and the light-pencil 
from the reflector falls on 0° of the scale. The principle 
of this arrangement is illustrated by the diagram, fig. 14. Here 
the galvanometer is at g^ and the instrument which is at /, is ad- 
justed, say, for example, to ten ohms resistance. At «, h, and 
<r, the resistance is the same. An increase or diminution of the 
pressure on the carbon button by an infinitesimal expansion or 
contraction of the substance under test is indicated on the scale 
of the galvanometer. 

The carbon button may be compared to a valve, for, when it 
is compressed in the slightest degree, its electrical conductivity 
is increased, and when it is allowed to expand it partly loses its 
conducting power. 

For measuring the heat of the stars, etc., this instrument is 
slightly modified so as to admit the light or heat at g, to the car- 
bon button F. Mr. Edison proposes to apply the principle of 
this instrujuent to delicate thermometers, barometers, hygrom- 
eters, etc., and ultimately to weigh the light of the sun. 



136 THOMAS A. EDISON 

Pressure Relay. 

In this novel and useful instrument Mr. Edison takes the ad- 
vantage of the remarkable property which plumbago possesses 
of decreasing its resistance enormously under sHght pressure. 
Thin discs of plumbago are placed upon the cupped poles of an 
electro-magnet — as shown in Fig. 15; p. 135 — the coils of which 
have several hundred ohms resistance. Upon the discs of plum- 
bago is laid the armature which is provided with a binding post 
for clamping the local battery wire. 

The core of the magnet, the plumbago discs, and the arma- 
ture are included in a local circuit, which also contains an ordi- 
nary sounder and several cells of bichromate battery. The 
relay magnet is inserted in the main line in the usual man- 
ner. The operation is as follows : When the main circuit is 
opened the attraction for the armature ceases, and the only pres- 
sure upon the plumbago discs is due to the weight of the arma- 
ture itself. With this pressure only the resistance of the plumbago 
to the passage of the local current amounts to several hundred 
ohms; with this resistance in the local circuit the sounder remains 
open. If now the main circuit be closed, a powerful attraction 
is set up between the poles of the relay magnet and its armature, 
causing a great increase in the pressure upon the plumbago discs, 
and reducing its resistance from several hundred to several ohms, 
consequently the sounder closes. So far the result differs but 
little from the ordinary relay and sounder. But the great differ- 
ence between this relay and those in common use, and its value, 
rests upon the fact that it repeats or translates from one circuit 
into another, the relative strengths of the first circuit. For in- 
stance, if a weak current circulates upon the line in which the 
relay magnet is inserted, the attraction for its armature will be 
small, the pressure upon the plumbago discs will be light, conse- 
quently a weak current will circulate within the second circuit; 
and on the contrary, if the current in the first circuit be strong, 
the pressure upon the plumbago discs will be increased, and in 
proportion will the current in the second circuit be increased. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 



137 



No adjustment is ever required. It is probably the only device 
yet invented which will allow of the translation of signals of 
variable strengths^ from one circuit into another, by the use of 
batteries in the ordinary manner. — This apparatus was designed 
by Mr. Edison for repeating the acoustical vibrations of vari- 
able strengths in his speaking telegraph. 



j^^-TSTiP 


TW^^ ■ ; ■■■' 


^-,^....;-.| 


_ - 


mmimitiiTi^^HH Hi 


i- 




T^ 




a MAIN- LINE 


[^B^BH 


giiiiiininiiiiii BE^^^^B 




1- 





Fig. 15 ; Pressure Relay. 




138 THOMAS A. EDISON 

The Carbon Rheostat. 

A New and Valuable Instrument — Balancing the Electrical 
Current — How it is done. 

Iq quadruplex telegraphy it is vital to the working of the sys- 
tem to perfectly balance the electrical current. 

The common method of doing this is to employ a rheostat 
containing a great length of resistance wire, more or less of which 
may be thrown into or cut out of the electrical circuit by in- 
serting or withdra\\ang plugs or keys. This operation often 
requires thirty minutes or more of time that is or might be very 
valuable. 

To remedy this difficulty Mr. Edison has devised the instru- 
ment represented in the engraving, Fig. i6 being a perspective 
view and Fig. 17a vertical section. 

A hollow vulcanite cylinder. A, is screwed on a boss on the 
brass plate, B. Fifty discs-— cut from a piece of silk that has 
been saturated with sizing and well filled with fine plumbago and 
dried — are placed upon the boss of the plate, B, and are sur- 
mounted by a plate, C, having a central conical cavity in its 
upper surface. A pointed screw, D, passes through the cap, E, 
at the top of the cylinder. A, and projects into the conical cavity 
in the plate C. The screw is provided with a disc, F, having a 
knife edge periphery, which extends to the scale, and serves as 
an index to show the degree of compression to which the silk 
discs are subjected. 

The instrument is placed in the circuit by connecting the cap, 
E, with one end of the battery wire and the plate, B, with the 
other end. 

The principle of the instrument is identical with Mr. Edison's 
carbon telephone. The compression of the series of discs in- 
creases conductivity: a diminution of pressure increases the 
resistance. Any degree of resistance within the. scope of the in- 
strument may be had hy turning the screw one way or the other. 

In this instrument the resistance may be varied from 400 to 
6,000 ohms, and any amount of resistance may be had by in- 
creasing the number of silk discs. 



T40 



THOMAS A. EDISON 



The Aerophone. 

The great object of this instrument is to increase the loudness 
of spoken words, without impairing the distinctness of articula- 
tion. The working of the mechanism is as follows : 

The magnified sound proceeds from a large diaphragm, which 




Fig. 18; Aerophone, (i.) 

is vibrated by steam or condensed air. The source of power is 
controlled by the motion of a second diaphragm, vibrating under 
the influence of the sound to be magnified. There are, there- 
fore, three distinct parts to the instrument : First, a source of 
power — steam or compressed air; second, an instrument to 
control the power; and third, a diaphragm vibrating under the 




Fig. 19; Aerophone, (2.) 

influence of the power. The first of these is usually compressed 
air, suppHed from a tank. It is necessary that it should be of 
constant pressure. 

The secopd is shown in section in Fig. i8, and consists of a 
diaphragm and mouth-piece, like those used in the telephone. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 141 

A hollow cylinder is attached by a rod to the center of the dia- 
phragm. The cylinder, and its chamber, E, will therefore, vibrate 
with the diaphragm. A downward movement lets the chamber 
communicate with the outlet, H, an upward movement with the 
outlet, G. The compressed air enters at A, and fills the cham- 
ber, which, in its normal position, has no outlet. Every down- 
ward vibration of the diaphragm will thus condense the air in the 
pipe, C, at the same time allowing the air in B to escape via 
F. An upward movement condenses the air in C, but opens I. 
The third and last part is shown in Fig. 19. It consists of a 
cylinder, and piston, P, like that employed in an ordinary engine. 
The piston-rod is attached to the center of a large diaphragm D. 
The pipes C and B, are continuations of those designated in Fig. 
18, by the same letters. The pipe C, communicates with one 
chamber of the cylinder, and B with the other. The piston, 
moving under the influence of the compresssed air, moves also 
the diaphragm, its vibrations being, in number and duration, 
identical with those of the diaphragm in the mouth-piece. 

The loudness of the sound emitted through the directing tube, 
F, is dependent on the size of the diaphragm and the power 
which moves it. The former of them is made very large, and 
the latter can be increased to many hundred pounds' pressure. 

With this instrument a locomotive may be made to call out 
the stations; steamships can converse at sea; light-houses may 
thunder the notes of danger far over the deep, and by a single 
machine, as Mr. Edison says, "the Declaration of Independence 
may be read so that every citizen in any one of our large cities 
may hear it." 




'Vw^l^^ 



142 



THOMAS A. EDISON 
Edison's Phonometer. 



Sound Power — A Mechanism run by the Human Voice — How 
Discovered and how it is done. 

This is a very ingenious and novel piece of mechanism, noted 
for the singular fact, that when spoken or sung at^ (or into,) res. 
ponds immediately by causing a wheel to revolve, but is deaf to all 
other influences. No amount of blowing will start the wheel; 




The Phonometer. 



only by the aid of sound can it be set in motion. In his tele- 
phone and phonograph researches Mr. Edison discovered that 
the vibrations of the vocal chords were capable of producing 
considerable dynamic effect. Acting on this hint, he began ex- 
periments on a plionometer, or instrument for measuring the 
mechanical force of .sound waves produced by the human voice. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 143 

In the course of these experiments he coustracted the machine 
shown in the accompanying engraving, which exhibits the dy- 
namic force of the voice. 

The machine has a diaphragm and mouth-piece similar to a 
phonograph. A spring which is secured to the bed piece rests 
on a piece of rubber tubing placed against the diaphragm. This 
spring carries a pawl L, that acts on a ratchet or roughened wheel 
R, on the fly-wheel shaft. A sound made in the mouth-piece cre- 
ates vibrations in the diaphragm; the vibrations of the dia- 
phragm move the spring and pawl with the same impulses, and 
as the pawl thus moves back and forth on the ratchet wheel, it 
is made to revolve. It revolves with considerable power : for it 
requires a surprising amount of pressure on the fly-wheel shaft to 
stop the machine while a continuous sound is made in the mouth- 
piece. Mr. Edison says there is no difficulty in making the ma- 
chine bore a hole through a board. 

The various purposes which this exeedingly ingenious and 
novel instrument may yet be called upon to accomplish, of 
course are mere conjectures, but if confined to the measurement 
of sound force only, it is a valauble discovery, for in this depar- 
ment it may find many important applications. 




144 



THOMAS A. EDISON 
Edison's Harmonic Engine. 



Pumping Water with a Tuning Fork — A Singular Machine — 

How it works. 

Until recently, electricity as a motive power has been a 
comparative failure as ninety per cent, of the battery was 




Fig. 20; Harmonic Engine. 

wasted. Mr. Edison has devised a novel electrical machine 
which he calls the Harmonic Engine, in which ninety per cent, 
of the power is realized. With two small electro-magnets and 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 145 

three or four small battery cells, sufficient power is generated to 
drive a sewing machine or pump water for household purposes. 

This engine, which is shown in Fig. 20, consists of a fork 
which is two feet and a half long, made of two inch square 
steel. The curved part of the fork is firmly keyed in a solid 
casting which is bolted to a suitable foundation, and to each 
arm of the fork is secured a thirty-five pound weight. Outside 
of and near the end of each arm is placed a very small electro- 
magnet. These magnets are connected with each other, and 
with a commutator that is operated by one of the arms. The 
arms make thirty-five vibrations per second, the amplitude of 
which is one-eighth of an inch. Small arms extend from the 
fork arms into a box containing a miniature pump having two 
pistons, one piston being attached to each arm. Each stroke 
of the pump raises a very small quantity of water, but this is 
compensated for by the rapidity of the strokes. Mr. Edison 
proposes to compress air with the harmonic engine, and use it 
as a motive agent for propelling sewing machines and other 
light machinery. The power must be taken from the fork arms 
so as not to affect the synchronism of their vibrations, otherwise 
this novel engine will not operate. It appears to be consider, 
ably in advance of other electric engines, and through its 
agency electricity may yet become a valuable motive power. 

When we remember that this engine is capable of causing the 
arms to make seventy or more combined strokes per second, and 
that each stroke can be made to pump a few drops of water, it 
is readily seen that as now constructed, the harmonic engine is 
of no inconsiderable value. 




10 



146 THOMAS A. EDISON 

Edison's Motograph Receiver. 

Mr. Edison has quite recently applied to his telephone, the 
principle of his electro-motograph. It is called the "Motograph 
Receiver, " and is described as follows : 




The Motograph Receiver. 

A diaphragm of mica four inches in diameter is held in a suitable 
framework. A hand crank or screw at A, rotates a chalk cyl- 
inder D, (previously impregnated with the chemical solution,) 
with a continuous forward motion directly outward from the face 
of the diaphragm. One end of a metal bar is fastened to the 
center of the diaphragm and the other end rests upon the chalk 
cylinder, being held down very firmly by a spring. The circuit 
is made from this metal bar, through the chalk cylinder to the 
base. As the cylinder is rotated either by hand or other power 
the friction between the metal bar and the chalk cylinder is very 
considerable, and the diaphragm is drawn or bowed outward 
toward the cylinder. This operation is purely mechanical and 
local. When the electric waves are transmitted from the distant 
station by the speaker (who uses Edison's carbon transmitter) 
over the wire to the receiver, each wave as it passes through the 
chalk cyilinder effects by electro-chemical decomposition more 
or less neutrahzation of the friction between the bar and the 
cylinder, according as the wave may be a strong or weak one. 
The resultant effect of each wave is the freeing of the diaphragm, 
permitting it to gain its normal position. Thus a series of elec- 
tric waves, with the alternate space between, effects a vibration 
of the diaphragm in perfect accord with the voice of the speaker. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 147 

Etheric Force. 

Sometime since Mr. Edison and his assistants were experi- 
menting with a vibrator magnet, consisting of a bar of Stubb's 
steel, fastened at one end and made to vibrate by means of a 
magnet, when they noticed a spark coming from the core of the 
magnet. They had often noticed the same phenomenon in con- 
nection with telegraphic relays and other electrical instruments, 
and had always supposed it to be due to inductive electricity. 
On this occasion the spark was so bright that they suspected 
something more than mere induction. On testing the apparatus 
they found that, by touching any portion of the vibrator or 
magnet with a piece of metal, they got "the spark!" 

They then connected a wire to the end of the vibrating rod — 
the wire leading nowhere — and got a spark by touching the wire 
with a piece of iron. Still more remarkable, a spark was got on 
turning the wire back on itself and touching any point of the 
wire with its free end! Ihese strange phenomena, in which the 
sparks as exhibited seem to antagonize the known laws of elec- 
trical science, led Mr. Edison to believe he had discovered a 
neiv force. He accordingly, after repeated experimentation, 
named his discovery "Etheric Force." 

It differs from electricity, especially inductive electricity, to 
which its sparks were at first attributed — in that its sparks are 
different in appearance and effect. They scintillate, and require 
actual contact of the points at which they ai:)pear. It differs 
from electricity in general in its entire independence of polarity. 
It does not require insulation. It will not charge a Leyden jar. 
It has no effect upon electroscopes or galvanometers. It fails to 
affect chemical compounds which are extremely sensitive to 
electricity. This discovery called forth considerable criticism. 

Edison says : I suggest that as I have freely laid myself open 
to criticism by presuming to believe in the capacity of Nature to 
supply a new form of energy, which presumption rests upon ex- 
periment, it is but fair that my critics should back up their as- 
sertions by experiment, and give me an equal chance as a critic. " 



148 THOMAS A. EDISON 

The Electric Light. 

The Ages Slow to Learn — Edison's Light vs. Jablochkoff's, et al — 
Subdivision of the Fluid — Platinum and Iridium Essen- 
tial FXctors — How THE Light Appeared to 
A Visitor — Carbon Candle. 

Electric light, though it has been flashing from the clouds from 
the remotest ages of creation, and is in fact older than the hills, 
has not until within a recent date been considered of any prac- 
tical utihty. Job, and Ben. Franklin, each in his day, saw this 
light, but they never dreamed that it was ultimately to illumine 
great cities. Like almost every other real good in the physical 
realm, this, too, has had its long period of inappreciation and non- 
comprehension. One would have supposed that the rousing thun- 
ders. Heaven's great aerophone, that accompanies every exhibi- 
bition of this light, would have long ago, awakened the world 
itself to a realization of the fact that the electric light might be 
utilized. But it has not been so. Coal, even — to say nothing 
of coal gas — is a modern discovery. So are potatoes and "love 
apples," so far as their essential values are concerned. The ages 
are slow to learn. And even now there are sage philosophers 
who stoutly aver that Mr. Edison will never succeed with his 
electric light. Probably it is better to exercise even this much 
thought about a new subject and so assert, than not to think 
anything whatever about the matter. So they thought and as- 
serted about the quadruplex, and other of his inventions, and 
yet they came along. It will be seen in another part of this 
volume that Mr. Edison, while engaged on duplex transmission, 
was called a lunatic, and yet this came out all right, and he now 
talks of a sextuplex. His quadruplex system, says the President 
of the Western Union Telegraph Company in his last report, 
"saved the Company five hundred thousand dollars yearly in 
construction." Splendid insanity this, which can accomplish 
such stupendous results financially from a single invention ! 

The general public wish Mr. Edison all possible success in this 
new line of investigation, and doubtless believe it is only a ques- 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 149 

tion of time when the electric light will be no longer confined 
to flashes in the clouds. The logical position is one of confident 
expectation. We must wait and see. As a matter of fact, Mr. 
Edison, thus far, has comprehended the subject of electricity 
sufficiently to introduce into this country more telegraphic instru- 
ments than any other man, and there are more of them earning 
money to-day than of any other man's inventions. All this is 
encouraging, to say the least. 

But Mr. Edison has already accomplished very much of what 
is to be done in securing the electric light. The "subdivision" is 
a virtual fact. Only the details necessary to render it easily 
and safely manipulated remain. And to these points he is giving 
his patient attention and energy. So far as he has gone in the 
great work, it should be noted, that his method radically differs 
from all others. While Jablochkoff, Sawyer, Werdermann, Wal- 
lace, Jenkins, and others consume carbon, more or less, in their 
methods of electrical illumination, Mr. Edison's is one of incan- 
descence. They use the carbon candle, which has not, thus far, 
allowed the subdivision of the electric fluid to any great extent; 
he uses a metalic compound which admits of almost an infinite 
subdivision, and which is not consumed. 

When an electrical current from a battery meets with resis- 
tance to its passage, the electricity is directly converted into 
heat. If a thin wire be placed in the circuit the temperature of 
the wire rapidly rises; and it has long been known that the 
amount of heat thus generated is directly proportional to the 
electric resistance of the wire. Now the resistance depends, 
among other things, on the nature of the metal; those metals 
which are good conductors, such as silver, offering much less re- 
sistance than those which are bad conductors such as platinum, 
which from its low electric conductivity, or what amounts to 
the same thing, from its high resistance — is peculiarly fitted for 
exhibiting incandescence. A chain made of alternate links 
of platinum and silver, when placed in a circuit would show 
the platinum links in a state of white heat. The resistance 
which a platinum or other wire offers to the current is related 



I50 THOMAS A. EDISON 

not only to the nature of the metal, but also to the thickness of 
the wire. Redace the thickness and the resistance is immediately 
increased. Again, the heating effect is closely connected with 
the strength of the current. Hence a powerful current sent 
through a thin platinum wire immediately renders it incan- 
descent (white heat.) 

Mr. Edison's electric light is produced by incandescence. — 
The conductor, which is made incandescent by the electrical 
current passing through it, is a small, curiously shaped apparatus, 
consisting of a high alloy of platinum and iridium, which can- 
not be melted at 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. A sufficient quantity 
of this metal is placed in each burner to give a light equal to 
that of a gas jet. Devices of exceeding simplicity, and, as 
repeated experiments have proved, of equal reliability, are con- 
nected with the lamp. They surmount the apparent impossibility 
of regulating the strength of the light. This lamp, when placed 
in the electric circuit in which a strong current circulates, is 
absolutely independent of the strength of the current. This 
Mr. Edison considers one of the vital features of the invention. 
Thus, if the regulator is set so that the light gives only, say, 
ten candle power, no increase in the strenth of the current will 
increase its brilliancy. 

Each light is independent of all others in the circuit. A 
thousand may be fed from the same conductor, and the extin- 
guishing of all but one will have on that one Mr. Edison claims, 
no perceptible effect. Each lamp in the circuit, by means of 
the regulator — a description of which latter the inventor for the 
present withholds — is allowed to draw from the central station 
just sufficient current to supply itself. In lighting by incandes- 
cence the light is obtained by the resistance which the conductor 
in the lamp offers to the passage of the electric current. Hence 
any other resistance exterior to the lamp used therewith to reg- 
ulate it requires a current in proportion to its resistance although 
it gives no light. One of the main features of Edison's invention 
consists in having all the resistance outside of the main conductor 
produce light, consequently there is maximum economy. The 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 151 

lamp devised by Mr. Edison is not merely a coil of incandescent 
metal, but a very peculiar arrangement of such metal whereby 
(by means of a discovery of his in connection with radiant en- 
ergy) a much weaker current is made to generate a given light 
than if a given spiral were used, and the considerable loss due to 
the division of the light is compensated for. 

In the Jablokofif method of electrical illumination, now used 
to a limited extent in Europe, the carbon candle, so called, 
consists of two rods or needles of carbon placed side by side, 
and kept insulated from each other, by a layer of plaster paris. 
They are each one-eighth of an inch in diameter and ten inches 
long, and are firmly fixed into metal sockets, to which wires are 
led and the conductor of the machine is made. When new, the 
tops of the two sticks only are joined by a small bit of carbon. 
One of these will ordinarily burn from an hour and a quarter to 
an hour and a half. Four of them are usually adjusted together 
under a large opal glass globe which subdues the dazzling brill- 
iancy of the light, though at a loss of about one half of the illu- 
minating power of the naked candle. As one of these candles 
burns down, the current is shifted to the next, and so on until 
the four are consumed. So that, at the outside, the lamps would 
continue burning six hours, when the set of four candles has to 
be replaced by others. By sending the current of electricity 
alternately through the two rods, thereby changing the poles, the 
carbons are kept uniform in length and the hght more steady. 

It has been acknowledged by nearly all electricians that 
lighting by incandescence, especially incandescence of a metalic 
wire, offers less obstacles to the division of the electric light than 
by any other method, and Mr. Edison believes it to be the only 
reliable method, because the light-giving metal is an electrical 
"constant" whose resistance can always be known and depended 
upon, — a condition which is exceedingly essential when many 
hundreds of lights must be supplied from one conductor. In the 
case of the electric are between carbon rods, the resistance 
varies at every instant, not only from changes in the strength of 
the current, but from impurities in the carbon, from air-currents, 



152 THOMAS A. EDISON 

and from many other causes. On this account Mr. Edison 
claims that factors so variable coming in play in hundreds of 
lamps make it impossible to calculate the strength of the current 
or size of the conductors. It would be as difficult supplying gas- 
from one main where each burner varied from excessive limits 
with the rapidity of lightning. Besides in the case of carbon 
points many hundreds reacting on each other cause such an un- 
steadiness in the light as to be unbearable. Lighting by incan- 
descence Mr. Edison claims is free from any of these defects. 

In the course of his experiments on the electric light Mr. Edison 
made the discovery that he could, by a certain combination in 
the form of the metal used in his lamp secure sufficient light 
from the electricity generated from a one cell battery to enable 
him to read by. The cell used was an ordinary one of Daniell's 
battery. To his surprise — for he hardly expected such a result — 
the metal soon became a dull red, and, after several other chan- 
ges, he succeeded in obtaining a glow which made it not at all 
difficult to read by the room being kept dark. Several of the 
labratory hands examined the phenomenon with curiosity. It 
served to demonstrate to Mr. Edison that he had hit upon the 
form of metal to produce the best result. 

Another new feature in the system of the light as a whole is 
his improvement on dynamo machine specifications, for a patent 
for which Mr. Edison has only just applied. 

A visitor at Menlo Park describes this light as follows: 
Mr. Edison exhibited an electric generating machine. It was 
what is known as the Wallace Machine. A knot of magnets ran 
around the cylinder, facing each other, and wires were attached 
to it. The great inventor slipped a belt over the machine, and 
the engine used in his manufactory began to turn the cylinder. 
He touched the point of the wire on a small piece of metal near 
the window casing, and there was a flash of blinding white light. 
It was repeated at each touch. "There is your steam power 
turned into an electric light, " he said, There was the light, 
clear, cold and beautiful. The intense brightness was gone, and 
there was nothing irritating to the eye. The mechanism was so 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 



153 



simple and perfect that it explained itself. The strip of plati- 
num that acted as a burner did not burn. It was incandescent. 
It threw off a light pure and white, and it was set in a gallows- 
like frame; but it glowed with the phosphorescent effulgence of 
the star Altair. You could trace the veins in your hands and 
the spots and lines upon your finger nails by its brightness. All 
the surplus electricity had been turned off, and the platinum 
shone with a mellow radiance through the small glass globe that 
surrounded it. A turn of the screw and its brightness became 
dazzling, or reduced itself to the faintest glimmer of a glow- 
worm. It seemed perfect. 




Electric Light 



154 THOMAS A. EDISON 

Edison's Explanation of His Electric Light. 

How THE Electricity is Generated — How the Light is Produced- 

The electro-magnetic machine for producing the electricity for 
Edison's electric hght, is described by the great inventor in his 
specifications, as follows: 

"It has long been known that if two electro-magnets, or an 
electro-magnet and a permanent magnet, be drawn apart or 
caused to pass by each other, electric currents will be set up in 
the helix of the electro-magnet. It has also been known that 
vibrating bodies, such as a tuning-fork or a reed, can be kept in 
vibration by the exercise of but little power. I avail of these 
two known forces, and combine them in such a manner as to 
obtain a powerful electric current by the expenditure of a small 
mechanical force. In Fig. 23 of the drawing, a tuning fork, «2, is 
represented as firmly attached to a stand, ^2. This fork is pre- 
ferably of two prongs, but only one might be employed upon the 
principle of a musical reed. The vibrating bar or fork may be 
two meters long, more or less, and heavy in proportion. It has 
its regular rate of vibration like a tuning fork, and the mechan- 
ism that keeps it in vibration is to move in harmony. A crank 
and revolving shaft, or other suitable mechanism, may be em- 
ployed, but I prefer a small air, gas, or water engine, applied to 
each end of the fork. The cylinder ai contains a piston and a 
rod, (5i, that is connected to the end of the bar, and steam, gas, 
water or other fluid under pressure acts within the cylinder, being 
admitted first to one side of the piston and then the other by a 
suitable valve; the valve and directing rod, ^2, are shown for 
this purpose. The bar of fork, ^2, may be a permanent magnet 
or an electro-magnet, or else it is provided with permanent or 
electro-magnets. I have shown an electro-magnet, ^i, upon each 
prong of the fork — there may be two or more on each — and 
opposed to these are the cores of the electro-magnets d. 
Hence as the fork is vibrated a current is set up in the helix of 
each electro -magnet, d^ in one direction as the cores approach 
each other, and in the opposite direction as they recede. This 



156 THOMAS A. EDISON 

alternate current is available for electric lights, but if it is desired 
to convert the current into one of continuity in the same direction 
a commutator is employed, operated by the vibrations of the fork 
to change the circuit connections each vibration, and thereby make 
the pulsation continuous on the line of one polarity. A portion 
of the current thus generated may pass through the helixes of the 
electro-magnets, ri, to intensify the same to the maximum power 
and the remainder of the current is employed for any desired 
electrical operation wherever available. I, however, use the 
same, especially with my electric lights, but I remark that elec- 
tricity for such lights may be developed by any suitable appara- 
tus. I have represented commutator springs or levers, ^3, ^4, 
operated by rods that slide through the levers, ^3, ^4. and by 
friction move them. When the prongs, dJ2, ^2, are moving from 
each other the contact of levers, ^3, ^4, will be with the screws, 
40, 41, and the current will be from line i, through c\ to ^, thence 
to ^3 to 41, 43, and to circuit of electro-magnets, d dj and from 
^ ^ by 42 to 40 C4, and line as indicated by the arrows. When 
the prongs, <22, ai, are vibrating towards each other the circuit 
will be through ri, c, ^3, 42, in the reverse direction through the 
circuit and magnets, d d^ back to 43, and by ^4, to line. " 

Fig. 24 shows the Edison lamp, which is thus described by the 
inventor : 

"Platinum and other materials that can only be fused at a very 
high temperature have been employed in electric lights; but 
there is risk of such light-giving substance melting under the 
electric energy. This portion of my invention relates to the 
regulation of the electric current, so as to prevent the same be- 
coming so intense as to injure the incandescent material. The 
current regulation is primarily effected by the heat itself, and is 
automatic. In Fig. 24 I have shown the light producing body as 
a spiral, <?, connected to the posts, b c, and within the glass cyl- 
inder, g. This cylinder has a cap, /, and stands upon a base, m, 
and for convenience a colum, n, and a stand, of any suitable 
character may be employed. 

I remark further, it is preferable to have the light within a case 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 



157 



or globe, and that various materials may be employed, such as 
alum water, between concentric cylinders, to lessen radiation, 
retain the heat, and lessen the electric energy required; or color- 
ed or opalescent glass, or solutions that reduce the refrangibility 




Fig. 24; Edison's Electric Light. 

Of the light, such as sulphate of quinine, may be employed to 
moderate the light, and the light may either be in the atmosphere 
or in a vacuum. 



158 THOMAS A. EDISON 

The electric circuit, Fig. 24, passes by line i to the lever, / 
thence by a wire or rod, k^ cap /, wire, ^, to post, <r, through the 
double spiral, a^ to the post, b^ and by a metallic connection or 
wire to line 4, and so on through the electric circuit. (Lines i 
and 4, are the same in both figures.) The light is developed at a. 
The rod, k^ will expand in proportion to the heat of the coil, or 
in proportion to the heat developed by the passage of the cur- 
rent through the fine wire, k^ and, if the heat becomes danger- 
ously high, injury to the apparatus is prevented by the expansion 
of rod, k^ moving the lever, y, to close the circuit at i and short 
circuit or shunt a portion of the current from the coil, a^ and 
reducing its temperature; this operation is automatic, and forms 
the principal feature of my invention, because it effectually pre- 
serves the apparatus from injury. The current need not pass 
through the wire or rod, k^ as the expansion thereof by the radi- 
ated heat from the coil, ^, will operate the lever, /, but the 
movement is not so prompt. It is to be understood that in all 
cases the action of the short current through the hght-giving 
substance and the circuit-closing devices play up and down at 
the contact point, maintaininguniformity of brilliancy of light." 

Concerning this wonderful invention, Mr. Edison further states : 
"Electric light coils may be put in a secondary circuit containing 
cells, with plates in a conducting liquid; and a lever is vibrated 
by an electro-magnet or by clock-work. When the lever is 
in contact the current from line i passes through the electro- 
magnet and cells, but when the contact ceases the line is closed, 
but a local circuit is made through the coils and second battery; 
the discharge of the second battery gives the lights and the 
movement is so rapid that the hght appears continuous. " Thus 
it will be seen that Mr. Edison is making sure and steady pro- 
gress with his electric light, which when finally completed, must 
rank with the grandest of all human inventions. His knowledge 
of the general subject, in which he has no superior in the world, 
his great inventive genius, his untiring industry, personal interest, 
and the success already attained, augur almost the absolute cer- 
tainty that the electric light will soon be a household blessing. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 159 

Glossary. 

Aerophone; (Greek, a-qp^ air, and cpGovrjy sound,) atmos- 
pheric, or steam talking machine. 

Carbon; (Latin, carbo, coal,) an elementary substance, not 
metallic in nature, which predominates in all organic compounds. 

Duplex; (Latin, duo, two, and plicare, to fold,) two-fold. 

Electricity; (Greek, rfkenrpov^ amber, so named because 
first produced, or discovered, by friction of amber.) A power in 
nature, often styled the electric fluid. It is evolved in any dis- 
turbance of molecular equihbrium, whether from a chemical 
physical, or mechanical cause. 

Helix; (Greek, eXi^, twisted, spiral,) spiral coil in electro- 
magnet. 

Megaphone; (Greek, jusya?^ great and cpoovf], sound,) an 
instrument for magnifying sound. 

Phonograph; (Greek, (poDvrjy sound, and ypacpeiVj to write,) 
an instrument for writing sound. 

Phonometer; )Greek, cpoDvrj^ sound, and jAerpov, measure.) 
an instrument for measuring the force of sound. 

Platinum; the heaviest and least expansible of the metals. 
It is harder than iron ; resists the action of acids and is capable 
of being rolled into thin plates. 

QuADRUPLEX; (Latin, quatuor^ four, and plicare^ to fold,) to 
double twice over; four-fold. 

Receiver; the part of the telephone with which we hear the 
sound or words, spoken at the distant station. 

Rheostat; (Greek, pEiVy to flow, and Gxaro^y fixed,) a con- 
trivance for regulating the velocity of electrical currents. 

Tasimeter; (Greek, raGii, extension, and fAerpoVy measure,) 
an instrument, primarily, for measuring extension; also for meas- 
uring heat and moisture. 

Telephone; (Greek, rrjXe, far, and (poovrjy sound,) an ap- 
paratus for conversing between distant stations by electro-mag- 
netism. 

Transmitter; the part of the telephone apparatus into which 
the words are spoken designed for the distant station. 



i6o 



THOMAS A. EDISON 



Recapitulation of Diagrams 



ILLUSTRATING 



EDISON'S Inventions. 




AND HIS INVENTIONS. 



i6i 




The Phonograph in operation. 




11 



Phonographic Records under the Microscope. 



l62 



THOMAS A. EDISON 




Edison's Electric Pen. 





Fig. I. Fig- «• 

Fig. I. Carbon Telephone— Interior. A A, Iron Diaphragm; B, India Rubber; C, Ivory; D, 
Platina Plate ; E, Carbon Disk ; G, Platina Screvr. Fig. 2. Exterior 
View of Edison's Telephone. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 



1.63 





164 



THOMAS A, EDISON 



V -t^;'';^- -;--^:';:'' 


Fig.;^.- 


■ :^''- 






n 


K^gfl 


■JLilla 

H 


RBUKI 


' ■■"■■■■ ^ " 






R 


^H^^u 




|g| 





Fig. 6 ; Tuning Fork Signal. 




Fig. 7 ; Pendulum Signal. 









Fig. 8 ; klectrophorub Telephone. 




LWf 




Fig. 10 ; Electro-Mechanical 
Telephone. 




Fig. 9 ; Electro-Static Telephone. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS, 




Fig. 5 ; Lever Signal. 



16=; 




Fig. j2; Micro-TasimeCCT in perspective. 




Fig. 13; Micro- Taximeter in section- 



F^. 14 ; Micro-Tasimeter in ciicuit. 




iyiiii;iLs:i li'lt^ 



i68 



THOMAS A. EDISON 




Harmonic Engine. 



Pressure Relay. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 



169 




The Phonometer. 



AND HIS INVENTIONS. 



171 




Edison's Electric Light. 



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Daniel "Webster and the Farmer. 

; {From "Entertaining Anecdotes.''*^ 

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